Examples Of Obsession In The Great Gatsby

“She never loved you, do you hear? 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 any one except me!” (Fitzgerald 130).
Blinding Lust In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is apparently in love with Daisy Buchanan; however, this seems to be a misconception. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the themes of love, lust and obsession, through the character Jay Gatsby, who confuses lust and obsession with love.
Nick, Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan have just gotten into the suite at the Plaza Hotel. As the group converses, Tom begins to interrogate Gatsby as to try to find some kind of flaw in his character, first asking about his use of the phrase “old sport”, and
then inquiring about his attendance at Oxford. Tom implies that Gatsby is trying to start a row, and the situation turns ill as he insults Gatsby. Gatsby replies that he has something to tell Tom, but Daisy interrupts in an attempt to stop Gatsby from saying anything about their prior relationship. Tom demands that he hear what Gatsby has to say, and Gatsby replies with the above passage.
Gatsby is trying to prove something to himself as well as to Tom.
He tells Tom that Daisy has never loved him and that Daisy has truly only ever loved him, Gatsby. The idea that Daisy has never loved Tom gives Gatsby hope, and it is that which has fueled Gatsby’s determinism to win Daisy back. Gatsby wants nothing more than for Daisy to tell Tom that she has never loved him. In doing so she would both satisfy Gatsby’s dream that has become more of an obsession, as well as terminate the one thing, in Gatsby’s eyes, that is keeping him and Daisy apart now that he has made his fortune and situated himself as a member of the upper class. Gatsby believes that Daisy only married Tom for his money as he states, “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me.” It is this belief that has been Gatsby’s driving motivation for acquiring all his money. Gatsby knew that Daisy was a material woman and that she was used to living a lavish life, and that if she married him, she would have to give up many of the luxuries that she had become accustomed to over the years. Gatsby's entire effort is focused on trying to rekindle the relationship with Daisy that existed at the point of time before he joined the army, except that this time he has enough money for
her.
There is a fine line between love and lust. A strong will to possess is not love. To love someone is to hold them dear to your heart. Remembering the past, Gatsby convinces himself that he and Daisy’s relationship can once again be what it once was. He becomes delusional with lust, and is blinded by it. Gatsby’s lust becomes an obsession and it completely overpowers him to the point that he becomes controlled by it. By the end of the novel, Gatsby is completely obsessed with Daisy. He thinks of nothing but how he can win her back and constantly analyses over every little detail of her life. The Great Gatsby exemplifies the true meaning of love, and the ways in which it can be misinterpreted. Towards the end of the novel, Gatsby is murdered by the husband of the woman Daisy has killed. Gatsby is denied Daisy's love and thereafter pays for her actions. She walks away with her life and social status intact and continues to live in luxury, paying no thought to the fact that the man who "loved" her, was killed for an action that she herself had committed. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald utilizes Gatsby to portray the succession of love, to lust, to obsession. In showing this succession, he differentiates between the three and shows that lust is only a will to possess, it is not love.
Gatsby stands a monument to the true meaning of love. Fitzgerald, through Gatsby, shows what might happen in the event that love is mistaken for lust which in turn develops into obsession. The Great Gatsby shows that love is more than money, despite Gatsby’s conviction in the passage, and that although money can buy mansions, expensive cars, and can certainly impress people, it cannot buy happiness, or, in this case, a certain women’s love because love is more than just the will to possess.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.