Examples Of Heroism In The Great Gatsby

A tragic hero is someone on significance who meets their fate with nobility and courage. They also have a tragic flaw. Jay Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, is the definition of a tragic-hero. He is a dreamer. He has the ability to make his dreams come true due to his excessive amount of money. One of the main goals that Gatsby has in the novel is to win over the love of his life, Daisy Buchannan. But he cannot visualize that the dream and the reality cannot come together.
Jay Gatsby believes that his wealth gives him the ability to repeat the past. Daisy and Gatsby had love, but it was when they were both youthful. He wasn’t to rekindle the past that they had. When told that repeating the past is impossible, he replies with “’Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously ‘Why of course I can!’” (Pg. 110). Gatsby also believes that Daisy can be won over by his wealth and the amount of materials he can buy her. He wants his riches to make her, his. Daisy just isn’t that type of women. She wants to be shown love. She wants to feel it. Gatsby seizes to realize that love cannot be bought.

When Daisy and Jay meet again after many years, he stops at nothing to get their love back.

The thought that men before him loved her only grew his commitment to win her back. “It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy-it increased her value in his eyes.” (Pg. 149). Her love was of much value to him. He wanted the “holy grail”. He had thought that all his wealth, inheritance, riches; his social class could make her fall back in love with him. He did not think that love was anymore than material things. That, in its self was his tragic flaw. It was not his fault for his wrongdoing. He was raised that way. He became accustomed to it. It was his norm. Gatsby was showing Daisy a part of his

childhood.
Jay Gatsby’s association with Daisy Buchannan is what is considered to be “The American Dream”. He is on the pursuit of happiness. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is comparable to America rising. Gatsby had this perfect vision of Daisy, which gave him her meaning to him was the same as to what the Americans gave meaning to America. Just like Americans dreams were crushed in 1920, Gatsby’s were too. Their differences in social class could not be made up from their output of love.
The tragic-hero, Jay Gatsby was trying to win over his dream with his wealth, but instead was crushed by it. He thought that money was the answer to everything. And so some problems, it could be. But winning over Daisy had no price tag. He couldn’t have helped it. His wealth could not do him good in this situation. He had been defeated.