Unrequited Love In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one which deals with theme of unrequited love. Jay Gatsby has spent the last five years attempting to find the person who he believes is the love of his life-Daisy Buchanan. However, Gatsby’s love is not received by Daisy, which leads the reader to question the motives for his love for her. Fitzgerald is able to achieve this through the use of certain literary techniques such as: themes, characterisation and symbolism. Through this Fitzgerald is able to convey a powerful message about the hurtful nature of love.
The extent of Gatsby’s love for Daisy becomes apparent during the exposition of the novel. In is evident that Gatsby is desperate to have her in his life.
“Arms stretched out,

He has spent the past five years attempting to impress her, all for Daisy to eventually dash all his hopes. Fitzgerald also gives the reader a powerful insight into the character of Daisy. Her indecisiveness demonstrates that she is in fact incapable of love, though she may be capable of affection she cannot comprehend a deep meaningful relationship. Daisy is in fact not in love Gatsby, this is first shown when she gets fed up waiting on him returning from war, she marries Tom. Now she wants to have an affair with him. After Gatsby’s revelation, he enters an altercation with Daisy’s husband Tom, out of anger that he may have lost Daisy

Again the reader is given more insight into the character of Daisy, she married Tom not out of love but rather for the money and social status that Tom could provide her. For the first time Gatsby admits explicitly that he was not the son of wealth parents, that he was in fact born into poverty and earned his money from less than legal business ventures. Gatsby realises that he will never be good enough for Daisy. Daisy did not bother to wait for Gatsby to return from war rather she saw someone better than him and decided to end her relationship before it began with