Preview

Examples Of Manipulation In The Great Gatsby

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
827 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Manipulation In The Great Gatsby
Gatsby Essay: Prompt 3 In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, Mr. Gatsby is depicted as a living representation of the American Dream. He is extremely wealthy and ambitious and constantly plans and works to improve his life. Gatsby’s dream has many components, including love and increased social status. Despite his ambition, Gatsby’s quest for love and power is halted by the people he seeks to overtake, primarily Tom Buchanan. Ultimately, the novel reveals that Gatsby never had control over anything and that he was the one who was to be controlled by the insupressible power of the Buchanans. This manipulation is what ultimately led to his failure to accomplish his dream and, tragically, his death. By displaying his attempts and failures to achieve …show more content…
He believes he can fully accomplish this by winning the love of Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan’s wife, whom Gatsby explains he has longed to be with for years. “Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care” (Fitzgerald 111). Gatsby is so infatuated with Daisy, and the idea of having her affluent life that attaining her becomes one of the only things he can focus on. This enthralling created his dream of a perfect life with her. Gatsby’s numerous attempts to catch Daisy's attention display his determination to achieve success and his naivety to it. With his newly obtained wealth, he holds large and extravagant parties in his lavish Long Island mansion, hoping that Daisy will one day attend. The novel's narrator, Nick Carraway, goes to one of these parties and describes how loud Gatsby’s events were. “Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks” (40). The extravagance and excessiveness of Gatsby’s parties shows his desire to show off his wealth and status to attract

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby was a phenomenal book that managed to captivate audiences from The Roaring 20s to today's classrooms. From its brilliantly elaborated characters, to its astonishing array of literary elements, The Great Gatsby was nothing short from stunning with its insane denouement. Fitzgerald managed to artfully construct multiple incredible characters utilizing the bases of their names to the etches of their figure. Characters such as Nick bit his tongue and contradicted many of his own supposed morals while Gatsby was entirely alluded upon the idea of Daisy. He manipulated all of his characters in such a chaotic harmony the ending mimicked the intensity and extravagance of an award show. In addition to Fitzgerald's clearly notable novel…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Often in works of literature a character will do almost anything to achieve his ultimate goal or dream. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the main characters, Gatsby will fail at achieving his dream. For Gatsby his ultimate dream is to get back together with his long lost girlfriend Daisy who he is sickly in love with. You might think that this could be an easy task for a man like Gatsby who is extremely wealthy and likable but what you don't know is that Daisy is happily married to a man named Tom Buchanan who plays the role as the bad guy, he is a Yale graduate and comes from a very wealthy family. Daisy and Gatsby are in love with each other and also have an affair, but they can never be together. Throughout the story he will…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Great Gatsby, an integral scene to the novel’s development occurs when Nick attends one of Gatsby’s spectacular parties. This scene is Nick’s first sighting of the Long Island party scene on a large scale. Nick is so enchanted by the atmosphere and the people in it, that he takes the time to describe each of the people that attended the party that night. In addition to showing Nick the party scene, Gatsby’s parties have a more significant effect on the work as a whole. Gatsby throws his ostentatious parties hoping that Daisy would stumble in one night and find him.…

    • 191 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, illustrates how the desire for money and materialism compels the American dream to decay. Fitzgerald uses Tom and Daisy’s daughter, Gatsby’s bootlegging, and the sin of adultery to show the downfall of ideals during this time period. The Great Gatsby examines the collapse of society’s morals and values in their attempt to try and pursue the American dream.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He throws lots of big parties to attract Daisy’s attention. Additionally, after five years being separated from Daisy, what Gatsby worries about when he meets her is not whether she misses him but whether his mansion looks well and the first place he wants her to visit is his splendid house (2). He keeps showing off his belongings and asking Daisy to check whether she is impressed. When “he [revalues] everything in his house according to the measure of response it [draws] from her well-loved eyes” (Fitzgerald 98), it is clear that Daisy’s recognition of his achievements concerns him the most and Gatsby overestimates the importance of material passion in his relationship with Daisy. In the end of the story, when Gatsby is willing to scarify his life-work and fame to save Daisy from being a murderer, this event is argued to be an evidence of love. However, as he desires her in the same way he is in pursuit of the glory of success and Daisy is only a supreme object helping him to strengthen his achievements, the act of protecting her is merely to protect the thing he longs for in his whole…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Daisy In The Great Gatsby

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages

    To start with, she thinks Gatsby is wealthy and falls in love with him. But realizing the fact that Gatsby can’t give her a luxurious life, she chooses Tom as her husband without any doubt. However, Gatsby’s appearing with historic fortune and his true love to her seems to make her moved, then she tries to recover the relationship between them. For Daisy, what she really wants is not a romantic lover, but she needs a man who can give her a comfortable life and a respect position.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the beginning, Gatsby knew that to attain the American Dream he would have to create the persona of Jay Gatsby from James Gatz. Jay Gatsby is a rich, successful man from West Egg in New York while James Gatz is the penniless son of unsuccessful farm people. Evidently, Gatsby grasps that to attain the American Dream he absolutely can not be a lower class laborer and must be born affluent. In addition, Gatsby is revealed as a hard worker when his father presents a schedule that exhibits, “‘Jimmy was bound to get ahead’” (Fitzgerald 173). He refers to the anal schedule of self-improvement Gatsby grinded himself through. However, it is also revealed Gatsby earned his money through illegal activities when Meyer Wolfsheim, a mob leader, tells the narrator, “‘Start him! I made him’” (Fitzgerald 173). This exposes that Gatsby believs that in order to create the American Dream from nothing, integrity is impossible. In the end of the novel, everything is taken away from Gatsby when he is murdered by another victim of the hopeless American Dream, Wilson. Evidently, Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, two people of privilege, can be linked to the intricate events leading to Gatsby’s downfall. Therefore, Fitzgerald reveals that all of Gatsby’s hard work and his own life was obliterated by the elite who were born into the American…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Daisy Buchanan, in Fitzgerald’s 1920s American novel: ‘The Great Gatsby’, is the love of Jay Gatsby and the person he has devoted the last five years of his life to. Initially, Fitzgerald portrays her as pure, attractive and innocent, but gradually reveals her selfish and shallow personality. Ultimately, the reader feels that she is not a worthy objective of Gatsby’s dedication.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Our experiences and surroundings in the eyes of Fitzgerald do not predict our future selves. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald understands we can create who we are going to be and that we have the control. Change occurs when we want or do not want change to happen. Fitzgerald strongly argues we have the power to predict our future and make it happen. His depiction of Gatsby’s character is not relatable to the Tierney’s argument as he creates false images of himself to please the people, especially Daisy.…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gatsby begins to reevaluate all of his belongings on the basis of how they could further his relationship with Daisy. When she comes over to his house, Gatsby “revalue[s] everything in his house according to the measure of response it [draws] from her well-loved eyes” (91). Objects that he had previously neglected suddenly had value and others became worthless simply because of Daisy’s response. Further, he spends excessive amounts of time pining after Daisy, instead of focusing on his own well-being. Prior to their reunion, Gatsby “read[s] a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name” (79). Even though Daisy is married and has her own family, the vitality of Gatsby’s vision makes it impossible for him to accept the inevitability of their separation. When they are apart, he obsesses over her, looking for any sign that she may still love him. His so-called love blinds him, preventing him from realizing that their relationship is failing simply because it is based on false hopes and unrealistic expectations. Nick puts it best when he laments, “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired” (79). Gatsby is pursuing Daisy endlessly, even though she will never belong to him. He believes that Daisy will be the one thing that finally makes his life complete, an…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes numerous messages that are vital to the novel. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is this mysterious character that spends his entire life trying to win over the love of his life Daisy Fay. But, Gatsby fails and his dreams are crushed which leads to a series of disastrous events. Because of characters’ tragic deaths, Fitzgerald makes it prominent that the American Dream is unachievable and it can ultimately lead to one’s destruction.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Is Gatsby Selfish

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Daisy initially fell in love with Gatsby’s newfound riches than Gatsby himself. As soon as she discovered his wealth she falls back in love with him, completely disregarding her own husband. Daisy was too caught up in the wealth and attention she received from Gatsby that she even declared, “why - how could I love him [Tom] - possibly? … ‘I never loved him” (126). Buchanan is so infatuated with Gatsby's lifestyle that she announced she never loved Tom and only married him because Jay was at war. Daisy’s husband had the wealth to support her and gave her some attention, but she detached from him the moment a richer man came along, who gave her the attention she desired. Therefore Daisy’s craving for more riches causes her to cheat on her husband for the man who is supplying superior funds and…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Contrary to Gatsby’s idealized view, Daisy is a self-centered girl. When Gatsby was called off to war, she was not worried about him but rather about herself. She just “wanted her life shaped now, immediately – and the decision must be made by some force – of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality – that was close at hand” (151). She needed a constant right next to her, and he came in the form of a brute, Tom Buchanan. She had married him not out of love but for financial security. He, in addition, had to be someone who matched her social standing. Years later, Gatsby returned and everything had already changed. Yet he didn’t notice that Daisy is not the right woman for him. He helped her once again, and loses his life because of it. Daisy had accidentally run over a deranged Myrtle Wilson on her way home. Gatsby couldn’t stand the thought of Daisy going to jail and took the blame for it. However, Daisy doesn’t care to attend Gatsby’s funeral, or even “send a message or flower” (174). “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy, - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their vast carelessness” (179). If Daisy loved Gatsby, it was a superficial love, for she never did anything for him.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After years of burying his feelings and waiting, he explodes in a rampage of rage and jealousy. Gatsby hates how his dream is being crushed because of this, something so cruel to him. In Gatsby’s eyes, Daisy’s love for him was being ripped away by Tom Buchanan. Gatsby genuinely thinks that Tom Buchanan is the reason Dasy doesn't love him the way he loves her, and that's how he snaps. “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except for me!” (Fitzgerald 137). After the years that Gatsby labored saving his money, he thought that Daisy would wait for him. He believed that she would stay, because their love was pure. Daisy did not wait. She could not wait that long, and so she eventually just married Tom Buchanan. She married Tom not for love but for greed. Gatsby eventually realizes that the dream he had was never going to come true, and he is so incredibly jealous of the life Tom has with his Daisy. Gatsby just wanted to be perfect, to be content in his own little world. That is not how things work out for Gatsby, however. Things only seem to crumble even…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby captures the essence of the immoral activities that were practiced by many people in the 1920’s era. Fitzgerald’s use of dishonesty and infidelity in his characters creates a realistic and meaningful depiction of the time. Both Jordan Baker and Tom Buchanan form the perfect image of those who deceived others in order to fulfil their own fantasies and desires. By the end of the novel, readers are aware of the way that the “American Dream” was nothing but an advertisement. It was a fantasy that was not meant to be achieved by those who sought it through immoral…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays