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In the book The Great Gatsby, the primary relationship is between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchman. The readers quickly begin to notice that Gatsby’s obsession over Daisy steers the novel’s plot. This is due to the fact most decisions made in gatsby’s life are to get him closer to Daisy. Which ends up expressing significant themes focused on by Fitzgerald. Similarly, in Sherwood Anderson's short story, The Strength of God, Reverend Curtis Hartman is drawn to Kate Swift because of Hartman’s sexual desire, when he watches naked Kate. This is one of the main points that paramount in the novel’s plot. Reverend Curtis. Throughout both these readings, the sexual appeal that Reverend Hartman has towards Kate Swift and the obsession that Gatsby has …show more content…
towards Daisy affect many decisions made, although they come from different backgrounds. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship starts five years before the writing of the novel.
The protagonist was based at Louisville before going for battle in the WWI. Unlike many others, Gatsby knew from a very young age that he wanted to be something more than a farm couples son. He successfully was able to pull off a cover for himself well enough for most people to believe that he had a wealthy background. He met Daisy in Louisville and saw her as a beautiful young heiress, who assumed him as someone like her social class. Gatsby’s attraction to Daisy is partly based on the wealth that she has and shows. For this reason, Gatsby keeps the lie of him being wealthy because it makes his relationship with Daisy to stronger and it advances. However, the love is gone after he goes to war and by the time he returned back to America, Daisy had already married Tom Buchanan. However, Gatsby has a deep attraction towards Daisy and he is determined to win her back. Though Daisy still remembers him, she is still not in love with him because it has been time since they have been together. Therefore, the attraction that Gatsby has towards Daisy is not …show more content…
mutual. The reader learns that Gatsby’s constant efforts to get Daisy back are not working because she does not recognize them and isn't familiar with his actions.
For instance, Gatsby buys a certain house “so that Daisy would be across the bay” (Fitzgerald, 2014). In the novel it is clear that Gatsby has been constantly thinking about Daisy which explains why he falls for her more and more. In contrast, Daisy creates another different life for herself and she even marries Tom. It is very obvious that in the first conversation that Daisy’s memories about Gatsby are foggy but strong. This is different because with Gatsby he is in love with her, he even remembers the specific month that they separated. After the reconnection,, both Daisy and Gatsby are captured in a honest and emotional conversation. Gatsby is sparked in the moment but the belief is not similar to Daisy except for the tears. Fitzgerald uses flashback to show Gatsby and Daisy’s first kiss from the reader's perspective. It is clear that Gatsby’s attraction towards Daisy expresses all his hopes and dreams caring about wealth and possibly living a better
life. Reverend Hartman’s attraction towards Kate Swift is ironical and a bit different from that of Daisy and Gatsby. Being a pastor at the Winesburg Presbyterian Church, Hartman and his wife are members of the community and they have been happy together. However, Hartman sexually attracted to Kate Swift after he peeps at her naked body. Strangely, the reverend gives a very powerful preach. The author tries to express the minister’s attraction to the teacher as a normal desire because a man should express himself through love. Unlike Gatsby’s attraction to Daisy that it is based on wealth and social status, Hartman’s attraction to Kate is purely founded on sexual desire. Hartman describes his love for Kate Swift as a sin, which he ultimately rejects. Arguably, the allusion also applies to Gatsby’s attraction towards Daisy because she is married to Tom Buchanan. Anyways,, both attractions are all not on the same level, as Gatsby seems to care and try more in the relationship than Daisy does. On the other hand, Hartman’s attraction towards the teacher is also on uneven levels because he does not communicate his opinions to her. Gatsby does not limit his attraction towards Daisy to any social norm. Rather, he is willing to do anything just to get her back. But on the other hand, Reverend Hartman is limited by the social facts and mores that then show and prove his attraction towards Kate Swift as sin. However, the attraction towards her naked body takes over his concentration in working on the sermon. The idea shows that even in the safest place from the world’s sins, the reverend is still tempted (Anderson, 1987).
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
In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan is unthinking and self-centered. Daisy is unthinking because when she meets Nick for the first time after the war; the first thing she says is “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness” (8) which is really unbecoming for a social butterfly like her. Moreover, she stutters while saying the word “paralyzed” which could imply that she says this without really thinking, because this is not the typical greeting one would say to their cousin, even after a long time. Also, since Daisy is pretty high on the social ladder, she expects people to laugh at her terrible jokes because she laughs after saying she is “paralyzed with happiness” even though Nick does not, illustrating her inconsiderate
Daisy becomes harder to grasp when Gatsby’s unworldly views on time and what is achievable causes her to fade from his dreams. His determination encompasses naivety because his dreams are unrealistic. Gatsby not only wants Daisy back, but he also wants to remove her past with Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband. Gatsby demands Daisy to tell Tom how she never loved him, but Daisy struggles to because it is not the truth. She tells Gatsby, “’Oh, you want too much!... I love you now – isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’… The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby” (132). Gatsby’s expectation for Daisy to delete the memory of her past love for Tom like words on a computer is naïve. It is Gatsby’s fault for fabricating a false idea of Daisy that separates his idea of her from her. He has a vision of a perfect story, but Daisy’s inability to erase her past with Tom critically ruins Gatsby’s vision. In his mind, Daisy only loves him, but when Daisy admits to the truth of once loving Tom as well, it is intolerable to Gatsby and his dream begins to fall apart. Similarly, Gatsby’s perception of time is flawed due to his obsession with Daisy. Ever since Daisy left Gatsby, he chases after her, looking for the past. When he finally meets her after many years, he sees an opportunity to start over and strives to avoid losing her
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...
During Gatsby’s early adulthood, he joined the army (where he first met Daisy). He initially loved her because of her extraordinary house and because many other men had already loved her. One evening in October, Gatsby fell in love with Daisy Fay, and in turn she fell in love with Gatsby. “[Daisy] was the first ‘nice’ girl that he had ever known” (155). Their love was uneasy at first but this uneasiness was lifted when he and Daisy fell in love, and he found that “she thought [he] knew a lot because [he] knew different things from her” (157). While their month of love was physically ended when Gatsby went abroad, their emotional love was not and Daisy, in her artificial world, could not understand why Gatsby could not come home; she wanted her love to be with her, she needed some assurance that she was doing the right thing. It was not long however, before Daisy fell in love with a wealthy, former All-American college football player named Tom Buchanan. Gatsby’s heart was br...
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
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel set in the era of the 1920’s that explores the effects of societal values placed upon wealth. It illustrates that the society’s ill-founded obsession with wealth leads to social stratification, inequality, and ultimately, corruption of morality. The Great Gatsby tells the story of Jay Gatsby, who climbs up the social ladder and displays his newly attained wealth by building a giant mansion in West Egg and hosting lavish parties. Gatsby does this in order to win back Daisy Buchanan, a girl who he had loved for years. Daisy, however, had married Tom Buchanan while Gatsby was away at war. Gatsby nevertheless persists at trying to attain Daisy throughout the entire novel. Gatsby shows extraordinary determination and commitment towards his irrational dream of attaining Daisy. Fitzgerald creates a parallel between Gatsby’s unreasonable obsession with Daisy and the society’s unjustifiable fixation upon money. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy is repeatedly equated with wealth in order to illustrate that the wealth is unworthy of the societal preoccupation that it receives.
Gatsby’s life is a vivid display of dissatisfaction and he takes extreme measures to create a life that he is happy with. In his earlier years, Gatsby lived on a North Dakota farm before deciding that he wanted to create a better life; he changed his name from Jimmy Gatz to Jay Gatsby and moved to New York, where he believed he could create a wealthy life (98). Gatsby is successful in achieving his goal of wealth, albeit through illegal bootlegging, yet he still feels he is not accomplished without Daisy. Gatsby is confident that he can get Daisy to love him again, however he is unhappy with the fact that she was ever married to Tom. He want’s Daisy to renounce her marriage to Tom, to tell him “I never love you”, essentially erasing the past four years of her l...
Her identity was pure, innocent, young and beautiful. At first, she just wanted to have a pure feeling with Gatsby, but when Gatsby went to the front, she could not stand the loneliness and the family persuasion, and she chose to marry Tom. When she chose to marry Tom and abandon Gatsby, her new identity increased material and selfishness. Her identity as a wealthy lady remains, but her purity is long gone. However, Gatsby was not aware of it. Another identity of daisy is a vain woman. In a society badly affected by consumerism, she chose to drift with the tide. She loves all luxuries, but all of this is entirely dependent on Tom. So although Tom had all kinds of romantic affairs,
The Great Gatsby presents the main character Jay Gatsby, as a poor man who is in love with his best friends cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby was in love with Daisy, his first real love. He was impressed with what she represented, great comfort with extravagant living. Gatsby knew he was not good enough for her, but he was deeply in love. “For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s”(Fitzgerald 107). Gatsby could not think of the right words to say. Daisy was too perfect beyond anything he was able to think of. Soon Gatsby and Daisy went their separate ways. Jay Gatsby went into the war while telling Daisy to find someone better for her, someone that will be able to keep her happy and provide for her. Gatsby and Daisy loved one another, but he had to do what was best for her. Gatsby knew the two might not meet again, but if they did, he wanted things to be the same. “I 'm going to fix everything just the way it was before”(Fitzgerald 106). He wanted Daisy to fall in love with him all over again. Unsure if Daisy would ever see Gatsby again, she got married while he was away. The two were still hugely in love with one another, but had to go separate ways in their
In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy struggles between her desire to be with someone she truly loves and her rational to be with someone who will give her social and financial stability. Ultimately, Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby as he is the safer option once Gatsby is revealed to be untruthful, showing that she is predominately interested in a steady life.
In all human life relationships are very important, and this is shown in many different aspects of human life . Relationships are so significant that Authors often use them as the revolving point of their stories. Such as in The Great Gatsby the author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the different relationships as the revolving point in his story. Fitzgerald shows how the relationships between the couples in The Great Gatsby are similar in many different ways. The couples in The Great Gatsby are Gatsby and Daisy, Tom and Myrtle, and Myrtle and her husband. Each couple in this play has a dishonest relationship in which one or both are Unfaithful to their significant other.
Jay Gatsby – Jay Gatsby is a young man who is immensely rich. He had stated his fortune had come from an inheritance which he used to travel the world on his own until part of the money was used up to where he settles into a mansion in the village of West Egg on Long Island. He was better known for the grand parties he threw so often, yet never fully attended his own ones. By that of he would never be too active in what was going on at the time, be it mingling with the party guests, or dancing to the full orchestras which he would hire to attend and perform during his parties. His real name, however, was James Gatz.
Gatsby is largely a mystery at the story’s beginning, defined by his wealth and influence as well as the rumors that flood the gossip lanes. He resides in West Egg, home of the nouveaux riche, across the sound from East Egg, where the established older money claims home to. He’s largely known for his extravagant parties, open to all corners of society, but he doesn’t participate in none of them. His actions prompt one to guess a reason, which revealed is the sole reason for all of Gatsby’s achievements. When becoming friends with Nick Carraway, he gives him his back story – his family, his travels in Europe, his service in WW1 and his college days in Oxford – all to give him proof that he stems from the same pool of individuals as Nick does. This also unveils Gatsby to be innocent, and honest with most people, traits that come into conflict with his foil the aristocratic bully Tom Buchanan (Daisy’s husband). Even early on, the myth of Jay Gatsby starts to crumble away as its revealed he came to his wealth through criminal endeavors, confirmed by his meeting with Meyer Wolfshiem.
Daisy states as a fact, “We haven't met for many years”, said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could be. “Five years next November.” “The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.” (Fitzgerald, 87). Daisy’s general statement that the two have been apart for some time is used to show Gatsby’s strong passion and attraction for her, shown by his quick and precise response. The fact that Gatsby was able to share the information regarding the years, and months that have passed since the last time the two had been together shows the intense complexity of his romantic vision. Gatsby from New money, a self made man and Daisy of Old money, there will be undeniable conflict between the two, especially in