The great Gatsby

Jasmyne Lundy
Summer reading assignment

The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is romance novel based in the 1920’s. in this book money makes everything happen and is the center of everyone’s lives. The money they posses is to buy them the best and most expensive things to try and impress everyone else. The money can buy everything but it doesn’t seem to be buying anyone happiness.
“’Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone’ he told me ‘ just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the same advantages as you’ve had” (page 1) Many people believed having many expensive belongings or have a lot of money is what everybody is looking for out of life. That being wealthy could solve all of your problems. In the quote above, Nick Carraway’s father is telling him to be humble about his advantages, because not everyone is so lucky… and not everyone cares to be.
“Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian colonial mansion overlooking the bay” (page 7) The house Tom and Daisy lived in was very large and very beautiful. Everyone wants to be the center of attention, have the best of the best to make everyone envy them for those belongings. You won’t truly fulfill the American experience if you don’t strive to be the best. Tom and Daisy were living the “American experience” but still wanted better.
“’it’s a b-tch” said Tom decisively ‘Here is your money. Go and by ten more dogs with it” (page 27) For people like Tom, money had no value. He was born into money and never really had to work for it. He was just throwing around money because he could because he had it. He thought spending a lot of money would bring him happiness and bring happiness to the people around him.
“’But it wasn’t a coincidence at all’
‘Why not’
‘Gatsby bought the house so that Daisy would be just across the bay’” (page 63)You never completed the American experience is A.) You don’t because wealthy or famous (or both) or B.) If you don’t fall in love with your college sweet heart. In Gatsby’s case, he’s pre-war sweetheart. Everyone is falling in love, but the best man always wins. Usually the best man is the one with more money that can provide for you everything you want. Gatsby didn’t care though he stayed around and waited years just to be with his sweet heart.
“He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction he was running down like over wound-clock” Gatsby wasn’t happy with his life. He never liked what was in front of him he always wanted something better. So he was constantly dreaming of ideas and something better. But that’s what everyone in America is dreaming of and striving for... Something bigger and better. Gatsby, like few began dreaming at a younger age.
“James Gatz – that was really or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age 17 and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career” Not only did Gatsby dream about changing his life he did change his life, starting with his name. He didn’t like who he was and he did everything to change it. He’s showing you that if you want something go and get it don’t wait for it to come to you.
“His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.” Gatsby’s parents weren’t wealthy. They didn’t own a lot of nice things and they never pursued more than what they had. They were grateful, while Gatsby wasn’t. he was never saw his parents has his “parents” they we just people he lived with. He was in search of the American experience as soon as he was old enough to understand the concept
“it makes me sad because I’ve never such – such beautiful shirts before” (page92) Everybody was so materialistic. In this scene Daisy wasn’t going to express her feelings about the shirt, she had other things on her mind. Instead though she resorted to talking about the beautiful shirts that were scattered in front of her as if they were a message from both her and Mr. Gatsby. “Her voice is full of money’… that was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it… High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…” (page 120) Everything and everyone was always concerned about money. If you didn’t have any money than you weren’t really important, because everyone important had money. The way she spoke as if she was elegant and important would lead you to know that she had money. That is was in the quote above it states that her voice was full of money.
“it excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy – it increased her value in his eyes”(page 149) As I said earlier being in love is also a part of the American dream. The most desirable women are the ones that everyone wants. Just like the money, the women were a prize. The person with the prettiest women and the most money and the nicest belongings was always the talk of the town. The person everyone wanted to be and the person everyone envied. “She vanished into her rich house, in to her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby - nothing. He felt married to her, that was all (page 149) Money can’t buy happiness. Money can’t buy love. Through this whole book that was the main entire struggle. Who would win the girl based on who had more to provide for her. He she loved more. In the end though she just resorted to go back to her money.
“Gatsby believed in the green light the orgastic future that year by year recedes before su. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further…” (page 180) In the end, it was revealed that nothing ever goes as it plans. Gatsby was always looking toward the future but was really stuck in the past. He never let go of the past which is what made his future turn out the way it did. You have to realize that sometimes things are meant to be and sometimes things aren’t.