I overheard a conversation Daniel and Ash were having today before class, and the disappointment Daniel felt when he got to the end of the book. I smiled, because I felt the same way. After all that insight I was expecting the secret to life to be revealed. Then in class I realized in a way it was!
“We didn’t keep score.”(Alexie 230)
In Junior High I always “kept score”, I would come home and look at my calendar and mutter something like, “14 bad days, 13 good so far.” How often do we keep score? It seemed through the entire book a huge mistake Junior was making was one that we all made, he kept score. “Wow this many bad things have happened, compared to this many good.” There is a point in life where you will drive yourself insane keeping a tally. At the end he has found out how to just enjoy playing the game. In a metaphorical sense we are comparing basketball to life; doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, as long as you played the game. He dribbles down that court, just like he will for now on walk into life, with his head high and just living each day to the fullest and for the simple joy of being alive.
On the topic of The Great Gatsby, a big theme of that story was “The American Dream”. This is commonly defined with wealth, luxury, and a family (notice I noted family last). Fitzgerald though shows in this book, that even if you have that dream, life will not ever be perfect, or flawless. Some people keeping score can get too caught up with their own tally’s that they lose the sense of others, or even the sense of self. As long as they have that tweety bird yellow luxury car, and a mansion filled with parties, you still have to live and experience. It doesn’t stop when a dream is achieved.
Alexie, Sherman. (2007). The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. (1925). The Great Gatsby. New York: Twayne Publishers.
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