Hardin's copy of The Great Gatsby

Hardin's copy of The Great Gatsby is a favorite childhood possession whose destruction exposes the vulnerability of the things he loves in a home governed by his father's drunken anger. The torn book is more than a damaged object: its scattered pages make the violence visible, while Hardin's efforts to hold it close and suppress his tears register what the loss means to him.

Identity and Importance

In the childhood scene, Hardin recognizes the book as his favorite and hugs it to his chest when his father notices it. Reading is a source of pride as well as pleasure: Miss Johnson has told him that he is a good reader, better than anyone else in fifth year. The book therefore belongs to a part of Hardin's life in which he has a valued ability and has received encouragement for it.

The Book Becomes a Target

The confrontation begins after Hardin's father complains that a bottle of scotch older than Hardin has been broken. As Hardin backs toward the stairs, hoping to get away, his father's attention shifts to the book. Hardin's plea cannot protect it: his father takes it from his hands and declares that because Hardin broke the bottle, he gets to break something of Hardin's. The book is made the object of retaliation, turning the father's grievance into a deliberate attack on something he knows Hardin cherishes.

Destruction and Its Image

Hardin's father tears the book in two and rips out its pages, then grabs some of them as they scatter and tears them into smaller pieces. The narration pictures Gatsby and Daisy floating around the room in a white storm. That image makes the book's destruction both material and literary: its characters seem to move through the room as the pages that contain them are broken apart. Hardin covers his ears and repeats to himself that it is only a book, insisting that he cannot cry even as his eyes burn.

Conflict and Significance

The father's destruction of the book becomes entangled with a troubled, unresolved accusation. He says Hardin is just like someone else because of his books; Hardin wonders if he means Jay Gatsby, then notes that Gatsby does not read as much as he does. His father goes on to say that a woman thinks he is stupid and that he knows what she did, but the scene does not explain what he means. The book is thus caught in an exchange whose deeper grievance remains obscure: it is both the immediate target of punishment and the object through which the father's resentment surfaces. Its destruction gives physical form to the threat surrounding Hardin's attachments, while the boy's insistence that it is only a book reveals how hard he is trying to contain his hurt.