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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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What is this?
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There is something infernal, perhaps even Satanic, about attacking (the idea of) the heavens themselves.
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What is this?
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He is establishing his freedom and independence – both his actual liberty from jail (he’s been talking about his life in the dope game), and his freedom from the “dead” hip-hop stultifying the rap game ca. 2008.
William Wallace, of course, is Braveheart — who ends the eponymous movie by screaming “freedom!” as he is tortured to death by the English. Is Liva suggesting an analogy between the oppressed/colonized Scots and African-Americans?
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.” F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter I)
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What is this?
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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This is sort of an ugly story, although Daisy and Jordan seem to find it rather amusing.
The Buchanans' butler, it is supposed, was not always a butler — he was formerly a skilled artisan, working in what appears from the story to be dangerous and exploitative conditions. Finally, his health deteriorates, to the point that he can no longer maintain his job.
On one level, this story expresses the casual contempt that Daisy and Jordan harbor for the working class; the butler’s very sad story is presented as an amusing anecdote.
On another level, it seems to express an anxiety about “losing one’s position” — the butler is degraded from a skilled artisan to a personal servant, forced to cater to the minute desires of the leisure class. This is the great horror of most of the characters in the novel. Gatsby is terrified that he will be “found out” as a striver and a parvenu. Daisy is afraid of losing her exalted class status by leaving the brutal Tom for the arriviste Gatsby, which ultimately influences her decision to reject the latter for the former. And Tom is secure in his class position, but develops an anxiety about losing his position as a white man, a member of the dominant race, which is why he is so obsessed with faddish theories of racial degeneration.
Finally, there is an unspoken punchline to the butler story that Daisy seems to miss: if their butler would prefer to work day and night polishing silver under extremely dangerous conditions, rather than become a butler for people like her and Tom, that says a great deal about how degrading and unpleasant it must have been to work for the bourgeoisie of the Jazz Age.
the butler’s nose was affected by the aristocracy and carelessness of the upper class. The American Dream, wealth, materialism corrupts – clearly both the rich (who are in constant pursuit of something greater) and the poor (who constantly try to work their way up).