Idealism is the exemplary belief of pursuing unrealistic ideals or dreams, in which idealists attempt to achieve a standard to perfection. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel, The Great Gatsby, is based on wealthy Jay Gatsby, his love for Daisy Buchanan and his explicit ideals for personal gain. Creating ideals or expectations that are out of touch of reality, will destructively lead to a dissapointment when the dream does not match the actuality. Jay Gatsby’s ideal for wealth since a young age has provided him a firm foundation for his life, but he currently presents the inability to formulate his life and overcome more difficult ideals of his past, such as love, hence repeating them in the future. Gatsby’s dream was to rise from his impoverish …show more content…
childhood and become rich as well as accepted by the upper class. In this pursuit of materialistic wealth, he falls in love with Daisy during his time in the military who interrupts his life goals and complicates them further. From that moment onwards, Gatsby dedicates himself to win back Daisy’s love as she is married so that they can be together forever, but it ultimately leads to his despair. Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth as well as class long before he met Daisy.
Gatsby’s ideal began in his deprived youth with naturally improving his own characteristic attributes. He started life as James Gatz, the son of unsuccessful farmers in North Dakota. He hated his poverty-stricken lifestyle, but in his spare time he always found the opportunity to improve and reinvent himself. ( ) Gatsby’s personal trait of spontaneously remodeling and honing his skills ultimately helps bring himself closer to his ideal standard of life. After dropping out of St. Olaf’s college of Minnesota, loathing the humiliating janitorial work of which means he paid his tuition, he started work at Lake Superior fishing for salmon. ( ) One day, he saw Cody, a wealthy copper mogul, drunk on his yacht upon an impending storm and rowed out to warn him. The grateful Cody took in James Gatz, giving him the name Jay Gatsby to be his personal assistant. ( ) After gaining the opportunity of a lifetime, Gatsby dedicated himself to becoming wealthy and successful. He learned everything from Cody from calling friends old sport to how to smile: “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it … It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.” (CH.3) …show more content…
Gatsby’s smile captures both his theatrical quality and charisma, encapsulating the manner in which he appears to the externally. After losing his inheritance from Dan Cody through the corrupt law, Gatsby realized that there is no point in pursuing his ideals or a corrupt American Dream through fair, hardworking and legal ways. He found a man named Meyer Wolfsheim, who was “the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.” (73) Wolfsheim, “raised him out of nothing” (171) and helped build his fortune through illegal means, including bootlegging. (133) Gatsby’s pursuit of materialistic wealth continues even though he was left penniless after Cody’s death. His mindset and mentality as an idealist kept him going through any means possible. Gatsby was able to transforms himself into the ideal that he envisioned as a child because he remained committed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that society presented to the fulfillment of his dream. Gatsby’s dream of rising from rags to riches is further complicated once he falls in love with Daisy.
As a young debutante, Daisy became extraordinarily popular among the military officers stationed near her home. This “excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy--it increased her value in his eyes.” ( ) Even though Gatsby fell in love with Daisy, there was a part of him that loved her because of the challenge that was involved in the process. This supports the development of Gatsby’s character of his idealistic views and mindset that he has associating her as winning a trophy rather than having a relationship. Gatsby met Daisy as a young military officer stationed in Louisville before leaving to fight the war. As they fell in love with each other, Gatsby realized that "Although [he] professed to love Daisy, there is a sense that he was not in love with her as much as he was in love with the idea of her." (Ch. 7) She was rich, beautiful and had power, charm as well as a luxurious lifestyle. This represented everything Gatsby had wished for since he was a child. Although Gatsby always wanted to become rich, she became his main motivation to in acquiring his fortune because of her aura of power and her love. Gatsby not only loved Daisy, but loved his ideal of attaining her. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther
… So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (180) The green light does not represent Daisy, instead it is a symbol representing Gatsby’s dream of having Daisy. Gatsby’s love for Daisy creates the main conflict within the novel and shifts his ideals from only gaining personal wealth to also attaining the ideal woman. Not only does Gatsby fall in love with Daisy Buchanan, he wastefully devotes his time and resources to show her the extent of his love. After Daisy’s marriage with Tom Buchanan in 1919, Gatsby’s dedication of winning back Daisy love goes to the extreme. At first he purchased an exquisite mansion on Long Island across the bay from her house and held lavish parties in order to impress her. His parties would be vulgar and ostentatious, with coloured lights, feasts of the finest delicacies and fine liquor. (40) On top of all of this, he would buy expensive ‘toys’ to impress Daisy, where “he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.” (91) What he did not understand was that all of this was in actuality pushing her away. She was terrified when she found out about Gatsby’s illegal activities (134), she did not enjoy going to the parties (109) and the fact that Gatsby excessively showed off his wealth defined him as part of the ‘nouveau-riche’. Gatsby also displays Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with determination that blinds him to her limitations. Gatsby “wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say, ‘I never loved you.’” () Gatsby still clings onto his romantic hope and unwavering belief that Daisy will leave Tom and everything behind to join him. He believes that he can “repeat the past” (Ch. 6) while living happily with Daisy without any other conflicts. He fails to acknowledge that Daisy may have conflicting interests and may not be able to leave Tom. Gatsby’s idolization of Daisy throughout the novel, ultimately brings him to his downfall. His sincerity and exceptional loyalty towards Daisy, his ideal, is everlasting, where these qualities lead to his death. He takes the blame killing of Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished. ( ) Despite all that has happened including Daisy’s marriage and child, his loyalty towards her is so immense that he continues to strive for this ideal dream and has retained hope that Daisy will choose him. This final act of obsessive devotion to Daisy ultimately leads to his death by Wilson who is out for revenge. With the acquisition of a large fortune Gatsby thought he had the ability to manipulate time erasing Daisy’s marriage and fixing her future with him. Instead Gatsby’s inability to let go of Daisy from the past, ultimately displays his downfall, all the while thoroughly presenting the extent to which Gatsby idealistic views are inconsistent with reality.
The Great Gatsby is an emotional tale of hope of love and “romantic readiness”(1.2) that is both admirable and meritorious .Yet, the question of Daisy ever being able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations is one that reverberates throughout the course of the novel. Be that as it may, Daisy is never truly able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations because the image of Daisy in Gatsby’s mind is entirely different from who she actually is. Even during his younger years, Gatsby had always had a vision of himself “as a son of God”(6.98) and that “he must be about his fathers business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty”(6.98). Gatsby’s desire for aristocracy, wealth, and luxury is exactly what drives him to pursue Daisy who embodies everything that that Gatsby desires and worked towards achieving. Therefore, Gatsby sees Daisy as the final piece to his puzzle in order realize his vision. Gatsby’s hyperbolized expectation of Daisy throws light on the notion if our dreams as individuals are actually limited by reality. Since our dreams as human beings are never truly realized, because they may be lacking a specific element. Daisy proves to be that element that lingers in Gatsby’s dreams but eludes his reality.
Gatsby’s love for daisy first went back a long time ago, and Daisy’s parents rejected of Gatsby because he wasn’t “pomp and circumstance”, like Tom Buchananand in result, Gatsby reinvents himself by becoming a financially successful man. Fitzgerald purposely has Gatsby state that Daisy’s “voice is full of money”, this illustrates that Gatsby is still trying to impress her and win her back; but on the other hand, the irony of the situation is that Gatsby can afford almost any materialistic, but can’t win Daisy. Also, when Jordan elaborates that Daisy never desired to attain love “, yet there’s something in that voice of hers”, she demonstrates not only that she is elusive, but also explains that she can manipulate her persona. This excitement and distraction, which is what Daisy provokes on Gatsby, is the what caused by the illusion of attaining Daisy, and thus fulfilling the American Dream. Daisy is personified as the American Dream throughout The Great Gatsby
Daisy's dependence on men with wealth and status, and Gatsby's underhanded attempts at gaining it illustrate America's belief that money and extravagance are the easiest means of finding success and happiness. The following statement from page 149 strongly illustrates Gatsby's belief that his only means of captivating Daisy would be through deception. "He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her in under false pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded in his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe he was a person from much the same stratum as herselfthat he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilitieshe had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to blow anywhere about the world (p. 149, paragraph 2)."
Jay Gatsby’s insignificant upbringing gave him reasons to make himself better and constantly look for ways to improve as a person and contribute to society. When Gatsby’s father arrives at his son’s house, he meets Nick. Mr. Gatz shows Nick a page from an old book of Gatsby’s. On the page was a outline of a young James Gatz’s day, including a list of general resolves and very organized schedule. Some of his resolves included: “no wasting time at Shafters or, no more smoking or chewing, and be better to parents” (173). These resolves indicate that Gatsby was trying to get rid of bad habits and be a better person. Raised by poor and unsuccessful farmers, Gatsby always had a vision that he was destined to be the “Jay Gatsby of West Egg” (98).
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...
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays what most people in the 1920s strived for: The American dream. The "American Dream" is a dream of money, prosperity and happiness that supposedly comes from the booming economy that formed the essential underworld of American upper-class society during the time period known as the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald employs Jay Gatsby to portray society in the 1920s as the man with the American Dream. Jay Gatsby is a romantic who becomes rich, starting from nothing. He is the romantic of the story, always interested in invention and re-invention rather than reality. Through his lifestyle, he creates an alternate reality that fits his imagination and his own “American dream”. Jay Gatsby has been chasing the American Dream since his childhood, and his romanticism leads him to obtain high status and a false sense of life. He eventually purses Daisy’s love, blinding him from the reality of the world, which ultimately shatters his dream.
Daisy’s original impression of Gatsby is evident in her early letters to him, “...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” (149). Daisy loved Gatsby under the false hope that they belonged to the same social class. She grew up surrounded by riches, never working a day in her life, and she could not comprehend the struggles of a man who must work for the food he eats each day. Daisy knew that she must marry when she is beautiful, for being a beautiful rich girl of good social standing was her highest commodity and most valuable chip in marrying well. In order to live a secure life, she had to find someone the had the means to provide for her extravagant lifestyle, and the deep care for her that would allow Daisy to do as she pleased. The only definition of love Daisy knew was one of disillusioned power and commitments under false pretenses in order to keep the wealthy continually rich. Daisy acknowledges the false pretenses of marriage for the wealthy in how she describes her daughter’s future. She tells Nick, “‘And I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this
In wanting to receive her love, he was willing to tell her anything even if it was all a lie. As Gatsby put it, “what was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” (Fitzgerald 150). Gatsby had an ideal image that he needed to accomplish in order for Daisy to truly love him. Once he discovered that Daisy had married Tom, that news was the trigger that set Gatsby off into his dream of recapturing Daisy. The “great dream” of capturing Daisy had taken over and Gatsby would not stop until he has accomplished the dream. Somehow, Gatsby realized that the only way of winning Daisy back was actually living up to the image he had told her, which was the image of “what he was going to do” (Fitzgerald 150). He promised that he was “the farm boy who reinvents himself as Jay Gatsby, who ‘sprang from a Platonic conception of himself’” and since he had gained the appropriate lifestyle for Daisy, it was time to win back her heart
Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby, creates an artifice version of himself to appear powerful and cultured. Once described as having “a romantic readiness” (Fitzgerald, 8), Gatsby believes that through his efforts and immense strength of will, he can defeat all truth and reality with his romantic dreams. As Daisy, the object of all of Gatsby’s romantic desires, and further, his life, would not marry into any man below her family’s class. Gatsby creates a “platonic conception of himself” (95) wherein he is an established, wealthy, and educated man who is generally mysterious to all but his past lover, Daisy Buchanan. This “sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year-old would be likely to invent” (95) becomes the bane of all activities in an effort to persuade Daisy into leaving Tom Buchanan and to reignite her love with Gatsby
Nick describes Gatsby as “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life(Ch.3).” Such description unifies the appearance of Gatsby with people’s expectation of a man who accomplished the American dream. The obsession with wealth often blinds people from the potential crisis. The crisis of having everything they worked and struggled for redefined if the reality fails them. Just like strivers who chase the American dream, Gatsby also spent his whole life in pursuit of his American dream, which Daisy was a major component of.
Gatsby is a dreamer, he dreams that one day he and Daisy will be able to be together once again. To achieve this dream, Gatsby has made himself a rich man. He knows that in order to win Daisy back, he must be wealthy and of high social stature. Gatsby is rich, has a beautiful mansion, nice things, things like shirts “They’re such beautiful shirts. . . It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful clothes” (pg.98).Gatsby believes his dream will come true because of all the money and nice things he has.
In society, many people mistakably blind themselves from the truth of reality in order to achieve the materialistic things life offers. They become intrigued by these ideas and dreams of another life and turn it into an obsession, unable to understand the consequences. In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Jay Gatsby’s perception of life exemplifies this by allowing his dreams to overpower reality. His belief happiness can be found through wealth, love and possessions causes him to think everything should and will be capable of his reach. Motivated by obsession with love and success, Gatsby creates an impractical dream for himself and Daisy.
The novel, The Great Gatsby focuses on one of the focal characters, James Gatz, also known as Jay Gatsby. He grew up in North Dakota to a family of poor farm people and as he matured, eventually worked for a wealthy man named Dan Cody. As Gatsby is taken under Cody’s wing, he gains more than even he bargained for. He comes across a large sum of money, however ends up getting tricked out of ‘inheriting’ it. After these obstacles, he finds a new way to earn his money, even though it means bending the law to obtain it. Some people will go to a lot of trouble in order to achieve things at all costs. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, conveys the numerous traits of Jay Gatsby through the incidents he faces, how he voices himself and the alterations he undergoes through the progression of the novel. Gatsby possesses many traits that help him develop as a key character in the novel: ambitious, kind-hearted and deceitful all of which is proven through various incidents that arise in the novel.
In the beginning, Gatsby was a poor army boy who fell in love with a rich girl named Daisy. Knowing from their different circumstances, he could not marry her. So Gatsby left to accumulate a lot of money. Daisy, not being able to wait for Gatsby, marries a rich man named Tom. Tom believes that it is okay for a man to be unfaithful but it is not okay for the woman to be. This caused a lot of conflict in their marriage and caused Daisy to be very unhappy. Gatsby’s dream is to be with Daisy, and since he has accumulated a lot of money, he had his mind set on getting her back. Throughout the novel, Gatsby shows his need to attain The American Dream of love and shows his determination to achieve it. You can tell that Gatsby has a clear vision of what he wants when Nick says, “..he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I gla...
Gatsby, as a child, had a daily schedule that he followed. He knew from childhood that he had to work for his fame. "Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something" (175). Gatsby's ambition lay not only in his future, but as he grew older it would be found in his love. He had an obsession with Daisy Buchanan and tried everything in his power to bring things back to they way they used to be when they first met. He thought he could relive the past. He threw lavish parties to get her attention. He did everything in his power to be near her. " ‘Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay' " (79) He earned his wealth so that they could finally be together.