English Period 2
11/24/12
The Great Gatsby Prompt 1 Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is not your ordinary love story. The Merriam- Webster dictionary defines love as the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration. In many cases two people might think they are in love, but they may just be in love with the idea of each other. An obsession with an idea about someone could feel just as intense as actually being in love with him or her. The novel seems to be a tragic story of Jay Gatsby’s desire to win back his true love Daisy Buchanan, but turns out to be much more than that. Gatsby is not in love with Daisy as much as he is in love with the idea of her. Throughout the novel the reader discovers that Gatsby’s true loves are wealth and material items, the past, and success. Gatsby relates every passion and desire in his life to Daisy, which makes it seem like he is madly in love with her. Gatsby lives a lavish lifestyle in a beautiful mansion in West Egg. He has a need for acceptance not only by those who surround him but also primarily by Daisy. Gatsby throws elaborate parties every weekend at his mansion however he never attends one of them. Nick arrives at one of Gatsby’s parties, “As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way…” The reason Gatsby throws such big parties is not for his own enjoyment, but for the hope that one day Daisy will show up and be amazed by his wealth. After meeting for the first time in years Gatsby brings Daisy to his house and tries to show off to her, “While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher- shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue”. Gatsby has to prove himself to Daisy with material possessions because that is all he has. He does not have a reputable position in society because he is “new