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Idealism vs realism in the great gatsby
Dangerous idealism in the great gatsby
Dangerous idealism in the great gatsby
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Idealism is an attempt to escape reality and imagine a perfect life. Sometimes people believe the perfect world actually exists and they work hard for their dreams to come true. Essentially, extreme idealists carry out their tasks, no matter how ridiculous, in order to live their dream. In The Great Gatsby, idealism occurs throughout the novel. Gatsby exemplifies idealism and the struggles of achieving the perfect life. He is striving for love and works hard in order to receive love from Daisy, but his dreams are very unrealistic. Gatsby’s idealism begins when Dan Cody introduces wealthy living, grows as his social mobility is mysteriously impressive, and ends when he realizes how unrealistic his goals were.
Gatsby was fortunate that Dan Cody had taken Gatsby for personal service in return for sophistication and wealth. In the process, Dan Cody introduces Gatsby to luxuries in
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which he had not experienced before; the introduction to luxuries had sprung his desire for his personal wealth. With wealth, he believed money could buy anything and greed came along with his growth of wealth. He was a son of God -- a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that -- and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty.
So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be
likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end. (Fitzgerald, 1925, p.98)
His false identity gives him a new start in the new world. While he is dressed in a soldier’s uniform, he attends a party at Daisy’s house in the middle of the night. He meets Daisy alone and realizes he now wants Daisy’s love. Gatsby’s greediness requires him to be with the perfect girl he has ever met. The only way to receive her love is to give her the impression of being a wealthy man.
He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses. I
don’t mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given
Daisy a sense of security; 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. (Fitzgerald, 1925,
p.149) Gatsby’s idealistic life grows as he is able to mysteriously gain wealth and social status. Now Gatsby has money of his own and is able to do anything he wants. With his new wealth, he moves to West Egg, right across the bay from which Daisy lives. He also throws parties for nobody in particular, but hoped Daisy would attend accidentally. Jordan stated, “‘Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay. . . . I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,’ went on Jordan, ‘but she never did.’” (Fitzgerald, 1925, p.78-79) This quote explains Gatsby’s actions after he got out of the war. He is still trying to keep his loose connections with Daisy, but now goes out of line to ask Nick to help him meet her again. Among Gatsby’s idealistic goals, being able to individually love Daisy is his priority throughout the novel. Gatsby desperately wants Daisy to confront Tom about her feelings. The text states, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’” (Fitzgerald, 1925, p.109) Daisy’s feelings and emotions are unstable, but Tom decides to confront Gatsby about his affair with Daisy. This leads to a heated battle between Tom and Gatsby. Eventually, Tom feels like he won the battle between himself and Gatsby, so he becomes audacious to assure his victory. Tom stated, “‘You two start on home, Daisy,’ said Tom. ‘In Mr. Gatsby’s car. . . . Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.’” (Fitzgerald, 1925, p.135) Gatsby and Daisy drive home together and they hit Myrtle, Tom’s mistress. Daisy was driving, but Gatsby chooses to take the blame for her. Nick advises Gatsby to leave in order to stay away from the police, but he refuses to leave Daisy. The text states, “‘Go away now, old sport?’ . . . He wouldn’t consider it. He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free.” (Fitzgerald, 1925, p.148) Gatsby’s ambition of his ideal life resulted in failure. He was able to realize that money can’t buy everything. He was introduced to a luxurious life by Dan Cody, which led him to strive for personal wealth. He then worked hard to gain wealth and social status in order for Daisy to love him. His ideal life came to an end when he failed to convince Daisy to leave Tom. For as long as Gatsby had been working toward an ideal life, he wasn’t going to let it die so easily. Gatsby’s ideal goals were absurd and ridiculously unrealistic. Idealism, in extreme cases, influences individuals to believe a perfect life really exists. Therefore, they will set their life goals to achieve their ideal life. Idealistic goals usually exceeds reality in which some things are not possible.
“ Its attitude is one of disillusionment and detachment; Fitzgerald is still able to evoke the glitter of the 1920s but he is no longer dazzled by it; he sees its underlying emptiness and impoverishment” (Trendell 23)The story is narrated from the point of view of Nick, one of Gatsby’s friends. The problematic and hopeless romantic, Gatsby, sets out to fulfill his dream in acquiring Daisy, his lifelong love, through his many tactics and ideas. Gatsby is introduced extending his arms mysteriously toward a green light in the direction of the water. Later, Gatsby is shown to be the host of many parties for the rich and Nick is invited to one of these parties where Gatsby and Nick meet. When Gatsby later confesses his love for Daisy he explains she was a loved one who was separated from him and hopes to get her again explained when he says, “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(Fitzgerald 56). There are several obstacles that Gatsby must overcome and the biggest one that is Daisy’s current fiancé but that still does not get in the way of him trying to recover Daisy’s old feelings. His attempts are made through money and wealth because he tries to buy her love back instead of letting it happen naturally.
In the third sentence, note the metaphor and explain Fitzgerald’s choice of this particular metaphor.
No two people are going to share the exact same goals, and while many people’s dreams run along the same pathways towards security, money, love, and companionship, the route by which to get there and the destination should be left entirely to the dreamer. By creating an institution such as the American Dream, goals become oversimplified. The American dream boils happiness down into two or three facets, which everyone seems to try desperately to conform to, but people cannot be told what to like. As conformists, though, everyone will attempt to seem perfectly happy with a lot they never chose as they live a dream they never wanted. Nothing showcases this more clearly than the rampant unhappiness of the characters in The Great Gatsby. None of the people the world would consider ‘successful’ end the novel happy; instead they are left either emotionally hollow or entirely dead. Their failure at achieving real and true happiness is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s way of criticizing the relentless pursuit of a phony American
When he first meets Daisy, Gatsby becomes infatuated with his idea of her, or rather, the false persona that she creates of herself. In fact, Gatsby reveals that “she was the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known” (155). Gatsby was so impressed with Daisy mainly because of her wealth and her status; it is what he wants. However, Daisy chooses Tom Buchanan over Gatsby, solely because of his social status. As a result, Gatsby revolves his whole life around her: he becomes wealthy, creates a new image of himself, and buys a house across the bay from Daisy. For instance, he fabricates lies about how “ [he is] the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west” (69) and how “ [he] was brought up in America but educated at Oxford” (69) in order to impress her. These lies end up altering others’ perspectives of him - not necessarily in a positive way - and impacting his life as a whole. Daisy unwittingly transforms Gatsby into a picture-perfect image of the 1920s: lavish parties, showy cars, and a false illusion of the attainment of the American Dream. Despite Gatsby’s newfound wealth and success, he never fully accomplishes his dream: to get Daisy. Gatsby’s final act for the sake of Daisy has no impact on her feelings towards him. When Gatsby claims that he crashed into Myrtle and killed her, Daisy carelessly lets him do so, which ultimately results in his death. To make
For five years, Gatsby was denied the one thing that he desired more than anything in the world: Daisy. While she was willing to wait for him until after the war, he did not want to return to her a poor man who would, in his eyes, be unworthy of her love. Gatsby did not want to force Daisy to choose between the comfortable lifestyle she was used to and his love. Before he would return to her, he was determined to make something of himself so that Daisy would not lose the affluence that she was accustomed to possessing. His desire for Daisy made Gatsby willing to do whatever was necessary to earn the money that would in turn lead to Daisy’s love, even if it meant participating in actions...
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has indisputably been one of the most influential and insightful pieces on the corruption and idealism of the American Dream. The American Dream, defined as ‘The belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone,’ was a dominant ideal in American society, stemming from an opportunist pioneer mentality. In his book ‘The American Tradition in Literature’, Bradley Sculley praised The Great Gatsby for being ‘perhaps the most striking fictional analysis of the age of gang barons and the social conditions that produced them.’ Over the years, greed and selfishness changed the basic essence of the American Dream, forming firmly integrated social classes and the uncontainable thirst for money and status. The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was a time of ‘sustained increase in national wealth’ , which consequently led to an increase in materialism and a decrease in morality. Moreover, the
Gatsby has been a self-made man starting as a young man. As his father describes him at his young age: "Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolve like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that"(173).
He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end”(104). After all the hurdles that Gatsby had to overcome, he turned into a rich and wealthy man. He was able to change his life for the better in such a positive way.
The Great Gatsby is a view into the society of the 1920's masterfully created my Fitzgerald. In this society the one and only Gatsby falls right into the middle. Gatsby is an exemplary example of one trying to live out the American Dream. "The American dream is the idea held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity." (Wikipedia) So basically the American Dream is to have money, and a family. Gatsby got his money, but what he really wanted was Daisy Buchanan.
Gatsby started off as a poor man who has to struggle through life. The only nice clothes that he has is his army uniform, which Daisy, his girlfriend enjoys when he wears she thinks that he looks nice. Gatsby is in love with Daisy and she is in love with him but because he was so poor they cannot get married. To survive Gatsby has to join the army and when he goes to war Daisy marries Tom, a rich stockbroker from New York, who gives Daisy a life of luxury. The problem, unbeknown to Daisy is that he is cheating on her. When Gatsby returns from battle he notices that Daisy has married a rich man and after realizing that Daisy was after Tom’s money Gatsby figures that the only way to get her back is by becoming rich himself. Once Gatsby has his dream of being rich he makes it his goal in life…to fulfill the needs of Daisy and marry her. Although luring ones wife into marrying yourself is not polite, it does make Gatsby great because it takes a strong willed man to make a life goal and stick to it
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925
Eble, Kenneth. F. Scott Fitzgerald Limited Edition. Ed. Sylvia E. Bowman. N.p.: Twayne Publishers, 1977. Print. Twayne’s United States Authors Series.
Starting at a young age Gatsby strives to become someone of wealth and power, leading him to create a façade of success built by lies in order to reach his unrealistic dream. The way Gatsby’s perceives himself is made clear as Nick explains: “The truth was Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God… he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 98). From the beginning Gatsby puts himself beside God, believing he is capable of achieving the impossible and being what he sees as great. Gatsby blinds himself of reality by idolizing this valueless way of life, ultimately guiding him to a corrupt lifestyle. While driving, Nick observes Gatsby curiously: “He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’ or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces…” (Fitzgerald 65). To fulfill his aspirations Gatsby desires to be seen an admirable and affluent man in society wh...
Gatsby encompasses many physiognomies such as ambitious. Ambitious outlines one who is eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, Jay Gatsby. It is evident that Gatsby generates his own fantasy world, a realm where he is not the underprivileged James Gatz, but the fantasized Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald conceives him as, “… the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). This quote expresses how he dreams up a new world to escape the blandness of his own existence. But his imagination and turmoil pays off because he ends up making his dreams reality. He personifies a man who goes from “rags to riches” because he strives to better himself as opposed t...
The idealist may have difficulty in a position in Eastern society. The conflict between the moral chaos that high society exacerbates, and the idealist may lead them to venture westward to escape. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway presents the unsuited idealist who attempts to regain morality in the West and Jay Gatsby blindly disrupts society to achieve an ideal world to prove that an idealist cannot survive in the East because the moral chaos that high society creates manifests an unsuitable environment.