The Mediocre -- "(T)he workers . . . of handicraft, trade, agriculture, and the greater part of art and science. It is the law of nature that they should be public utilities that they should be wheels and functions. The only kind of happiness of which they are capable makes intelligent machines of them. For the mediocre, it is happiness to be mediocre" -- Nietzsche
“He was a blond, spiritless man, anaemic and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes” ( Fitzgerald 25).
Wilson stands far apart as a little man in a little job, but critics go on to assert, "Even the best and brightest minds . . . become assimilated and ground down, so that they become . . . cogs in a machine” (Linsteads 165).
"(O)ne of these worn-out men . . . When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own" ( Fitzgerald 136).
