Why Is The Great Gatsby Great

The “Great” Jay Gatsby
The word great has many meanings – outstanding, eminent, grand, important, extraordinary, noble, etc. - and varies along with the intent of the speaker and on the interpretation of the hearer. Someone may perceive something as great, and yet someone else may see that same thing as horrendous. The greatness of a being is not determined by themselves, but by those around them who experience, and perceive, their greatness through actions and words. In the book, “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is the narrator, Nick, who judges Gatsby as a great person with a “gorgeous” personality. It is his way of perceiving Gatsby that leads us to also find him “great”. Gatsby, through his actions, his dreams and
his heart distinguishes himself from the “foul dust” and makes himself “worth the whole damn bunch put together”.
An interpretation for the title and the “great” in the title would be that it is a way of announcing Gatsby; the way one would announce a magician or a circus person: “The Great Houdini”, “The Great Blackstone”.
A magician can create illusions, thus appearances are not always reality or what they seem to be. Gatsby manages to create an illusion for he manages to appear to belong to a higher class than he really does. He manages to fool “the spectators” around him by throwing extravagant parties that give off a sense of great wealth and stature.
The person of Jay Gatsby itself is a masterful illusion.
Gatsby is a man shrouded in a cloud of mystery. He has a large amount of money and some people speculate as to how he got it. There are also quite a few rumours going around about him, someone even says that he looks like he killed a person. He is considered to throw some of the best parties around, and everyone who is someone must be seen at one of Gatsby’s parties.
He never reveals anything about himself to people; however, he does reveal his true nature to Nick, who explains Gatsby to us.
One of the things that make Gatsby great is that he is a self-made man who went from nothing to a lot.
He is great in the terms of the social height he attained and his material gains. He climbed his way up to greatness by working hard, achieving his dreams and – fundamentally – by being “innocent”.
Gatsby’s real name is “James Gatz” but he “had changed it at the age of seventeen” “when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor”. Dan Cody is his first step towards the wealth that he desires. Dan Cody leaves him an inheritance that he is cheated out of, yet one can consider that as a first step towards his wealth.
Gatsby’s parents “were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” thus meaning that Gatsby had no status and no wealth. Over the years, he managed to gain status by making a lot of money and managed to create the image he wanted to have based on his dream; this is the first part of his dream that he managed to realize.
One may say that Gatsby is not great at all, for the means by which he made his money are not legal – he was a bootlegger. This, however, could be almost considered as somewhat acceptable, for men needed to get their alcohol somehow and many people became bootleggers, thus not taking anything away from Gatsby’s
greatness.
As briefly aforementioned, Gatsby manages to achieve part of his “American dream” for a short period of time.
Daisy is the main reason for his greatness and the fact that he manages to achieve some of his dream. He has always wanted money and meeting, then falling in love with Daisy, gave him an incentive, a motivation to become wealthy and climb up the social ladder for he wanted to be worthy of Daisy. She is the only thing that matters to him and he stays loyal to her until the end, even waiting for her to call when we all know she will not. It takes a great man to have that kind of love for one person.
His love for Daisy – or rather the illusion that he has of her – is so strong that he takes the blame of killing Myrtle for Daisy. This is his last great act for her and he does it because “he felt married to her, that is all.”
His dream is partway fulfilled for he has money, status and Daisy. The reason his dream is not fulfilled is because it is too unrealistic and Daisy would never leave Tom to marry Gatsby. He is, however, the only one that managed to get close to his dream, fulfilling it partway. This, and the fact that he stays true to his dream until the end make him great.
Gatsby’s fathers says “If he’d lived, he’d of been a great man.” But what he does not know is that Gatsby already was a great man, as Nick so rightly said when he said that Gatsby was worth the whole bunch put together for he was pure and innocent compared to the “foul dust” and the other characters, Nick excluded.
Gatsby was fundamentally good at heart - even though he dabbled in crime – unlike the others who were never really good at heart. Gatsby never really told lies – he told half-truths. He also had a sense of loyalty that the others did not have and he showed it by being loyal to Daisy even though she did not deserve it.
He always behaved like a gentleman – even with Tom – except for when he first saw Daisy, for he was extremely nervous and excited, and except for when Tom confronted him about his affair with Daisy, and, unlike the foul dust, he never hurt anyone.
Gatsby was not careless and stays true to himself until the end, unlike anyone else.
All of the above made him a great and rare type of person during that time, where materialistic things and lies reigned.
It takes a great person to take what they have, and get to where they dream to be. Jay Gatsby did exactly that. He was a great man who had touched few people, but those he had it was in irreversible ways. He made Nick realize what money could do to a person and was always the topic of discussion wherever he went. I still have not managed to figure out if Jay Gatsby himself was great, or if he was great because of others perception, but I do know that he really was “The Great Gatsby”.

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