Obsession In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Love is a power that is able to bind two different people together forever. It is also a power that gives someone the drive to have a much harder work ethic so they can achieve the goal that they set for themselves. In The Great Gatsby, this is seen through the character Gatsby often throughout the novel as Gatsby tries to center his world around Daisy, the love of his life. Although some may argue that it is the attainment of Daisy that brings Gatsby satisfaction, the quest to get her is what truly grants him fulfilment because his overdramatic five year obsession causing him to over glorify her and the desire for her gave him something to work towards.

It can be seen that Gatsby’s dramatic obsession is more satisfying than just him getting

Daisy easily, like some of the wealthy people in the book gained there wealth from their own families. When Nick describes Gatsby’s expression as he says farewell to the two and interprets from it that Daisy fell “short of his dreams...because of the colossal vitality of his illusion”(Fitzgerald 95), to justify the extreme measures that were taken by Gatsby to guarantee Daisy’s acceptance of his love, Gatsby is very much disappointed by Daisy’s behavior. Gatsby truly believed Daisy would be ecstatic at the sight of Gatsby and his beautiful palace, proving to her that he can provide both the luxury of wealth and passionate love, but reality in this case fell short of his built-up expectations. Thus, this proves that Gatsby’s extensive quest to reach his goal provided and fed Gatsby this idea that Daisy would just fall into his grasp and leave Tom immediately. It can be seen that Gatsby regrets his goal and much rather work for his achievement when Nick starts to narrate about Gatsby and says “His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was” (Fitzgerald 110). Nick realizes that Gatsby’s goal is to bring back his past where he had Daisy to himself and was able to live happily. He does not want to be apart from Daisy and everything is so much more complicated now than back then so he wants to go back to simpler times.
To furthermore show that Gatsby has really tried to achieve his goal in earning Daisy Nick, describes Gatsby’s request as modest says, “He had waited five long years and bought a mansion...so she could ‘come over’” (Fitzgerald 78), showing how magnificent his planning had become, yet it all led up to something as simple as a small invitation to his neighbor’s small home.

Gatsby’s quest to acquire Daisy was enlarged by his colossal obsession with the idea of being reunited with her, until the time actually came in which something so simple as a tea date was all he asked for in order to meet her. The purpose of acquiring such wealth and an extravagant home seems so pointless when Gatsby decides to meet with Daisy in Nick’s underwhelming cabin. The extravagancy of his vision deeply contrasts the modesty of the acquisition of his goal in this case. This shows a different side of Gatsby and his visions on what he thought would happen when he reached his goal and what actually occurred. Gatsby starts to panic when his visions do not occur when Nick and Gatsby are sat in Nick’s home, waiting for Daisy, Gatsby argues “Nobody’s coming to tea. It’s too late...I can’t wait all day” Fitzgerald 85). Gatsby is clearly very antsy and nervous about seeing Daisy again. He was very deeply in love with her and after 5 long years of waiting to see her again and they are finally reunited. All of his plans will be put into action and all of this planning will make him terribly self conscious

because everything must be perfect and how he imagined it to be.
Even though it can be seen that Gatsby would be more satisfied achieving his goal, it is obvious that he is more satisfied on the ride trying to accomplish that goal. His obsession with Daisy has been present for about 5 years and he has tried to construct this reality with her in it. All of the wealth he has gained has been put into making his life Daisy friendly and it seems that he is dissatisfied when he starts to realize that his ideas of having Daisy in his life are not going the way Gatsby had expected.