The Great Gatsby Critical Lens

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby as memoir recalling a story of a life he once pertained. Within writing this narrative containing several symbols and metaphor it reveals the dark truth of life. As Hamlet said to Ophelia, “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” The battle between who Gatsby is and who he perceived himself to be, creates a futile battle. As the narratives reaches the peak of the climax, Gatsby believes by wedding Daisy he’d reach ultimate success. However, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs believes that ultimate success is self-actualization, a missing component that neither versions of Gatsby’s ever sees. Paul Laurence Dunbar(source B) state “Nay, let them only see us, while
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Since the very first time he met Daisy in Louisville in 1917 he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself—that he was fully able to take care of her (page 149 3rd paragraph). He perceived himself as Jay Gatsby not once did he perceived himself as James Gatz. Since the very instant he met Daisy was instantly smitten with her wealth, her beauty, and her youthful innocence. As the narrative unravels the “love” story becomes more abstract as there is less connection which reveals that Gatsby does not love Daisy but what she represents. “The blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees--he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.” Daisy was a symbol that represented the stepping stone to achieving old money status. “He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant.” Daisy represented the highest peek of luxury that he had never seen, and he wanted to receive. He had no intention of falling in love with her since she was ‘a beautiful little fool’ and was only a representation of the lifestyle he had desire. Gatsby means was to achieve acceptance and status from old money in doing so going further away from self