The mystery behind Jay Gatsby allows for him to become one of the most intriguing members of the upper class. As Gatsby’s background unravels, it becomes clear that Fitzgerald chose Jay Gatsby as the main character because he defies every social normality in the 1920’s. By Fitzgerald’s writing, the reader realizes that Gatsby’s mindset separates him from others. Everything Gatsby has accomplished in the past five years is because of his dedication, ambition, and integrity in following in his dreams which Fitzgerald greatly admires. The social class one is born into is the one they belong to their entire life, unless you are Jay Gatsby. Although Gatsby attempts to convince people that his entire life has consisted of lavish and wealthy things,…
Gatsby began life as the son of poor farmers living on the shores of Lake Superior. Early in his youth Gatsby “knew he had a big future in front of him”. He later changed his name from James Gatz to the more fashionable sounding Jay Gatsby. The narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, is astounded by Gatsby’s ambition. “There was something gorgeous about him… it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is likely I shall never find again”. Gatsby was determined to attain his goal and self-disciplined Gatsby was as a young dreamer. He wanted to change the world by being the one who would invent a “needed invention”. Young Gatz was bound to make it big. He had what it took: the brains, the will power, the looks, and the ambition. However Gatsby’s intentions were the purest when he was a young boy, by the time he was grown man he had already made it in the world, his story of success is quite different from that which his dreams foretold. What Fitzgerald is trying to show is the change of Gatsby’s original pure American dream to his success, infected with…
In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, lives out the American Dream by cheating, lying, and using his personal belongings to flaunt as trophies. Gatsby’s main goal is to have Daisy in his life and shows his financial worth in order to achieve this. The American Dream is thought to be freedom, equality, and opportunity. Jay Gatsby takes these ideals and modifies them to how he wants to live them. Gatsby is extremely flashy in his lifestyle just so people believe that he was born into a wealthy family and is part of the ‘old money’ community. In this novel, Jay Gatsby corrupts the American Dream because of his suspicious business activity, his cheating ways and instead of looking forward for new opportunities, pursues the past.…
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the main character Jay Gatsby is the tragic hero in the novel. Gatsby is a rich man who falls in love with a woman from his past, but could not be with her; instead, he ended up alone and was killed.…
Gatsby’s hopelessness becomes apparent when he creates a new image for himself and ultimately soars to a higher class, and yet continually gets ostracized for his nuance in etiquette, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself...So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). First off, this conception of himself, which started from the age of seventeen; and at this age, he may have thought it out differently from the way that things actually played out which in turn, laid the groundworks for discrepancies further down in his life. The newly formed image that Gatsby had tried to make for himself was purely for his personal gain in the beginning, however expanded mainly in the effort to attain Daisy and her love. This idea of constantly needing to improve even when the American Dream results in success, is unhealthy when the effects on others become coherent. When Gatsby had finally become rich and met Daisy, those memories never left his mind, so he went on to pursue her and attempt to steal her from Tom. Though his attempts were pointless, as she would never think about abandoning her status for a man who is only barely on par with her husband, so…
Jay Gatsby is passionately in love with a married woman named Daisy Buchanan, a woman he lost five years before the start of the book. In this novel, Gatsby orders his life around his one desire: to be reunited with Daisy. Gatsby’s mission in this story leads him from poverty to wealth, into Daisy’s arms, and eventually into his death. Gatsby sees Daisy as embodying the past that can be again in the future. He is completely obsessed with returning to the time when he and Daisy fell in love. "He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was."(117; ch. 6) This clarifies why Gatsby is so desperate to reclaim Daisy and why he is stuck living in the past. In a way, Daisy represents a prize to Gatsby. Acquiring this prize is his dream, his salvation, and eventually it becomes his temperament. This love for Daisy is no longer a harmless attraction to Gatsby. It becomes an unhealthy obsession that completely takes over his life.…
He became Jay Gatsby, all of his dreams turned into work, and the the work turned into money. Even though as a boy he had been a hard worker- as shown when his father shows Jay’s old daily schedule to Nick- he was only setting up the framework for a successful life, and it took his transformation into Jay Gatsby and his love affair with Daisy to start him on the right track. He was an embodiment of the “New Money”, young, determined, vulgar, hardworking, and not very tasteful. He had far more heart than the “Old Money” like Jordan and the Buchanans, who were tasteful and elegant, but also had the lazy boredom of of someone who has everything they want. Even though Gatsby made his money through criminal activity, he was loyal, sincere, and his love for Daisy was genuine- even though Daisy herself is disloyal and doesn’t seem to care much about Gatsby’s death.…
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…
The Great Gatsby is not a story about Jay Gatsby. It is a story about the green light, the American dream. “It is the story that if you work hard enough, you can succeed” (Donahue, “Five reasons ‘Gatsby’ is the great American novel”). Jay Gatsby was once James Gatz, a poor boy of unsuccessful farmers. The United States was founded upon aspiring immigrants who wished to one day enjoy rich livelihoods. Even in…
Jay Gatsby is a puzzling character to comprehend. One may wonder how it is possible he has not achieved his dream. He lives the most wealthy lifestyle imaginable and throws parties that are the talk of the town. The reason Gatsby has not achieved his dream is because he is not truly happy. Before he went to war, he was in love with Daisy; however, while he was away he received the news that Daisy was marrying Tom Buchannan. After this, Gatsby’s entire life is…
The final for this book will be a written essay using evidence to prove your point. You will also be showing off your abilities to use academic English (vocabulary and sentence structures) and functional grammar. You will be required to use at least one example of parallelism and use both the semi-colon and colon.…
Everyone finds love one way or another, but in “The Great Gatsby” it’s much different. The author, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, fell in love with a girl, Zelda, well she ended up leaving him because he was poor, and she would be living a lifestyle she’s not used to. When Fitzgerald gets money, and becomes well off Zelda comes running back, they get married, travel together, and have a kid this is when he wrote “The Great Gatsby”. Jay Gatsby is not in love with Daisy, he loves the idea of being with her. Jay Gatsby is obsessed not in love.…
In The Great Gatsby, James Gatz wanted to change his old life to a new life, using the American Dream. Thus, creating this new man, Jay Gatsby. Although James Gatz was born into a poor family, he did anything he could to change his life and made sure people didn’t know his true background. Over the years,…
There was only one major thing in Gatsby’s eyes that would jeopardize his perfect plan for him and Daisy. That one thing that stood in the way was what Gatsby wanted to believe was Daisy’s fake love for Tom. So he wanted her to admit that she always loved Gatsby and never loved Tom. “I did love him once- but I loved you too” (Fitzgerald 132). In order for his plan to work perfectly he wanted Daisy to tell Tom she never loved him at all. But Gatsby seemed more upset by the confession of Daisy than the fact that Daisy is actually married to…
Success and wealth significantly defined one’s status in society. Gatsby appears to be a successful man after he receives a formal education at a highly regarded institution and collects an immense amount of money from organized crime. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby…invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” As he gazes at the green light on Daisy’s dock, Gatsby hopes that his success, a testament to the American Dream, will assist him in achieving his goal of winning back Daisy.…