Minor Characters In The Great Gatsby

When we remember novels and plays throughout time, it is not the minute details or even the entire plot that we manage to keep in our minds. It is the characters, the complex, intriguing people whose lives, thoughts, and hopes are usually closer to home than not. When one thinks of To Kill a Mockingbird, he or she thinks of Atticus; it’s not the story but the eponymous man himself that comes to mind when thinking of The Great Gatsby. The only piece of a novel its reader will keep in his or her memory is often the protagonist, and so therefore these characters are the most well-rounded and most interesting. But what about the minor characters? Do authors devote so much time to their heroes that they fail their sidekicks? Joseph Heller, the author

Catch-22, published in 1961, is a direct response to the horrors Heller observed as a World War II bombardier. However, although it is specific to the now seventy year old war, much of what is described in the novel is directly applicable to modern day wars. We still read non-fiction horror stories about crimes committed against innocent people not only by armies attacking their country but forces who are supposedly defending them. Lives lost due to war are still devalued; if a hundred people are killed in peacetime, it’s a horrific tragedy. If a thousand people die in a war zone, it can still be a victory assuming more people die on the other side. And there is still an inevitable element of lack of control that comes with every war. It begs the question, considering all of the aforementioned forces at play, of whether or not war is accomplishing anything when time after time again we are still struggling against the same