True Love in the Great Gatsby
True Love in The Great Gatsby True love is an emotion that every human being should have the privilege of experiencing once in their life. There is no one correct definition for this feeling, it is definitely different for everyone, but in the end love should make your life better not more difficult. These days the concept of true love has become cliché and people are letting outside factors dictate their emotions. This problem, while it is very prominent today, is not a new thing. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the idea of mistaken true love fills the pages. All the characters have different ideas of what love really is and its worth. Fitzgerald uses his characters Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby to show three different yet equally flawed ideas of true love. This paper will show in detail the flaws of each character’s thinking. I hope to create a clear definition of true love through deductive reasoning, ruling out what love is not will help show its proper definition. Tom Buchanan is a wealthy high class man. He has the grossly mistaken idea that his social status entitles him to do whatever he wants. He is married to Daisy, which means he swore to love and cherish her always, but throughout the novel Fitzgerald makes it seem as if he doesn’t even like Daisy let alone respect her enough to love her. As Nick says when introducing the characters of Tom and Daisy to the reader,
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it- I had no sight into Daisy’s heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game(Fitzgerald 6).
This segment shows how Tom had little respect for Daisy and just brought her along as if she were just another piece of luggage,
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it- I had no sight into Daisy’s heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game(Fitzgerald 6).
This segment shows how Tom had little respect for Daisy and just brought her along as if she were just another piece of luggage,
Cited: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, New York: Scribner, 2004.