In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main characters, unsatisfied with their lives, desperately try to change their lives so others would view them in a different light. The characters find it hard to find it hard to find satisfaction in themselves and survive as good person.Even those with the most money, feel a need for a different persauna. The only character to find themselves was the narrator Nick Carraway. The author implies the idea that perfection comes with being wealthy. Daisy comes from a wealthy background and believes she must be perfect. The rose, in the story, symbols perfection. Daisy wishes to become a rose. She wears a lot of white, which symbols purity, and has a half acre of roses that leads to her house. Surrounding …show more content…
herself with white and rosy hues in an attempt transform her imagine into the ideal version. White on the outside and yellow on the inside is a daisy. She wishes to pure on the inside and the outside like the rose, but that could never happen. A shallow person by nature she is unable to really change, but she puts on a really good act. After becoming addicted to the life that Tom gives her, Myrtle tries to transform herself into Daisy so Tom will want her.
Simply “with the changing of her dress, her personality had also undergone a change.” (p.35) Coming from a poor background, the intoxicating money of the American Dream corrupts her. She loved her husband and was a faithful wife, but when Tom, a rich gentleman, pays her interest, she immediately falls for him, abandoning her old way of life. Therefore, she does not like her husband and she says, “ I married him because I thought he was a gentleman...I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.” (p.39) Due to Tom pampering her, she sees herself to be equal to Daisy in Tom’s eyes. She believes him to be the person who will save her from the Valley of Ashes. “Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dais--” Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” (p.41) Tom sees her as a belonging, not a person. Her naive personality lead to her death at the hands of Daisy. Ironically, she was killed by what she wanted to …show more content…
become. Gatsby’s ability to control time and the way people see him makes it possible for him to transform himself into a rich gentlemen so Daisy would want him.
He came from a poor family, but after the war he meet Daisy. Daisy, being from a wealthy family, liked the idea of a fling with a poor man, but girls from her background do not marry guys like him. She gave him a look into the American Dream and he falls in love with the money. He is the only one who really become something he was not, but he wanted Daisy. “They’re a rotten crowd...You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”(p.162) He picked up calling people old sport to sound more sophisticated. He carefully chooses his words to speak with eloquence so he fits in to the rich crowd. He joins the military, went to Oxford, took up bootlegging, and completely reinvented himself just so Daisy would want
him. In the beginning of the story, the narrator Nick Carraway moved east to follow the American Dream of wealth, but quickly realizes it was not for him after seeing the corruptive power of money firsthand. He lived in West Egg in small house “consoling proximity of millionaires.”(p.10) He states “Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I’d known Tom in college.” (p.10) The truth was he barely knew them. He says, “I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all.” (p.11) He makes a point to mention that he had actually been invited to the party, unlike most of the other party goers who feconted Gatsby’s parties. He goes to several parties and outings with Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan, but never really enjoys them. When Tom takes him to meet Myrtle at the apartment, he tries to leave. Tom’s infidelity makes Nick very uncomfortable. All of these things were meant to try and help him fit into the Eastern scene,“I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.” (p.186) Nick discovered that the Eastern scene was not him. He returned to the Midwest and found satisfaction in himself.
There is only one thing which every philosopher who speculates about the human condition can agree on, and that is the idea that humans are complex, imperfect beings who may not always understand themselves. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his novel The Great Gatsby, attempts to reveal this idea about human character by fashioning the narrator, Nick Carraway, into a complex character. He does this by highlighting Nick’s contrasting opinions of and interactions with life amongst the rich, and showing that Nick’s character is not as infallible as he himself would like to believe. Through his contrasting judgements and actions,
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on the lifestyle of a group of people who will do anything to accomplish their goals. The characters go through different changes that come to affect their life decisions and will cause them to lie, sacrifice and feel lonely in their lives. They live the American dream and have power but chase a dream that would affect and change their lifestyles. They judge and discriminate against one another not knowing they have a certain symbol in common in their lives. Their desire to accomplish their goals became a type of new life to the characters.
As depicted by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the 1920s is an era of a great downfall both socially and morally. As the rich get richer, the poor remain to fend for themselves, with no help of any kind coming their way. Throughout Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the two “breeds” of wealthier folk consistently butt heads in an ongoing battle of varying lifestyles. The West Eggers, best represented by Jay Gatsby, are the newly rich, with little to no sense of class or taste. Their polar opposites, the East Eggers, are signified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan; these people have inherited their riches from the country’s wealthiest old families and treat their money with dignity and social grace. Money, a mere object in the hands of the newly wealthy, is unconscientiously squandered by Gatsby in an effort to bring his only source of happiness, Daisy, into his life once again. Over the course of his countless wild parties, he dissipates thousands upon thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to attract Daisy’s attention. For Gatsby, the only way he could capture this happiness is to achieve his personal “American Dream” and end up with Daisy in his arms. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is somewhat detrimental to himself and the ones around him; his actions destroy relationships and ultimately get two people killed.
The Value of Jay Gatsby Jay Gatsby, who is one of the main characters of the Great Gatsby, is a man with a mysterious background and an unknown personality. He doesn't mention too much about his past except certain fabricated highlights of his life which were designed to impress others. The strange and humorous thing is that he carries articles of evidence that back up most of his lies to prove that he isn't lying. Gatsby is also the kind of man that is used to getting what he wants no matter what the consequences are, causing him to be a very determined man that once has an idea in his mind won't let it go until he accomplishes it. The things that Jay Gatsby values the most is money, to impress others and gain acceptance and most of all, having things his own way.
“The great Gatsby” is an inspiring novel written by the famous American author Scott Fitzgerald. The novel was published in 1925. It is regarded as Scott’s supreme achievement and also as a masterwork in American literature, and it’s entirely justified.
Toady a new patient came in named Nick Carraway. Carraway is a struggling bond salesman that just moved next to that big place on the island, Gatsby’s place. He seems to like his new home, but he often talks about how the homesickness he feels is relating back to his fathers conduct. "Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth"(Fitzgerald 6). It kind of struck me how Carraway’s attitude could be shaped by a simple code of conduct. He began to talk about how this person eluded some moral standards. "I wanted to no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart . Only Gastby, was exempt from my reaction"(6). He said that he gave this a reason because Gatsby was, basically, everything Carraway hoped to be. I thought a while before I gave my reply. I explained to him that life was about how rich a man was in experience, not how much material he has. He kind of shrugged it off like it was a cheap psychiatrist line. The more he told me about Gastby, it seemed the more he felt he needed to emulate him. He then began to talk of a Mr. Tom Buchannan. Tom was not to Carraway’s liking. He seemed harsh and too masculine to have any relation in Nick’s life. Nick is simple, innocent, and he is just starting out. From what he has told me about him, Tom seems to be a bigot of sorts, not to fond of Nick’s existence in this side of town at all. How does tom fit in to all this, I asked myself. Tom is Daisy’s husband; Daisy is Nick’s cousin. Kind of confusing, eh? Carraway started to finish up the session with a story of how he and Tom took a trip to Manhattan. On the way they stopped at Wilson’s Gas Station to meet "Tom’s girl." I was shocked by this finding. Nick carried a new burden upon his shoulders. Should he tell Daisy about they affair? I told him not to worry and to wait until next week.
Daisy also exhibits her shallowness when she is too restless to wait for her 'love', Gatsby, to return from he war, and she marries Tom. Her most drastic immoral action is committed when she runs over Myrtle and does not even bother to stop and help a person that is 'below' her. Daisy's husband, Tom shows his ridiculous morality in different ways. One way is his search for power, which is shown most through his affair with Myrtle and his possessiveness. He evidently feels further domination and masculinity when he has her, a woman of lower class, as his mistress. Secondly, Tom Buchanan is shallow enough to think that everything and everyone he has in his life are part of his property. This increases his 'power' and makes him feel as if he is truly successful. This couple, Tom and Daisy certainly contain serious corruptness due to their shallowness and self-indulgence.
Daisy’s character can also be identified by the way she speaks of her daughter, Pammy, “I hope she'll be a fool, that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (17). This implies that woman don’t have power in the world compare to a man. Daisy thinks it’s best to have beauty rather than brains. Daisy treats her daughter as an object, showing her off to guests at her house, which suggests her lack of concern for her child and how careless she is. Daisy’s relation with Tom is unstable at sometimes. Daisy and Tom both came fr...
The novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald relates the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby through the eyes of an idealistic man that moves in next door to the eccentric millionaire. Nick Carraway comes to the east coast with dreams of wealth, high society, and success on his mind. It is not long before Gatsby becomes one of his closest friends who offers him the very lifestyle and status that Nick came looking for. As the story unfolds, it is easy to see that the focus on Jay Gatsby creates a false sense of what the story truly is. The Great Gatsby is not the tragic tale of James Gatz (Jay Gatsby), but rather the coming of age story of Nick Carraway. In many ways the journeys of Gatsby and Nick are parallel to one another, but in the end it’s Nick’s initiation into the real world that wins out.
Daisy is an attractive, wealthy, and shallow lady with luscious voice, which seems to have a sound of wealth. Daisy is wealthy and comes from a prominent family in Louisville. She marries the very wealthy Tom Buchanan. Daisy is a bored and careless woman. She is incapable of entertaining herself and wonders what she will do with her life for the next thirty years. Although she is the mother of a young daughter, she is incapable of any depth of maternal feelings.
Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the rich couple, seem to have everything they could possibly want. Though their lives are full of anything you could imagine, they are unhappy and seek to change, Tom drifts on "forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game"(pg. 10) and reads "deep books with long words in them"(pg. 17) just so he has something to talk about. Even though Tom is married to Daisy he has an affair with Myrtle Wilson and has apartment with her in New York.. Daisy is an empty character, someone with hardly any convictions or desires. Even before her relationships with Tom or, Gatsby are seen, Daisy does nothing but sit around all day and wonder what to do with herself and her friend Jordan. She knows that Tom is having an affair, yet she doesn't leave him even when she hears about Gatsby loving her. Daisy lets Gatsby know that she too is in love with him but cant bring herself to tell Tom goodbye except when Gatsby forces her too. Even then, once Tom begs her to stay, even then Daisy forever leaves Gatsby for her old life of comfort. Daisy and Tom are perfect examples of wealth and prosperity, and the American Dream. Yet their lives are empty, and without purpose.
Dissatisfaction with life is shown within the first couple of pages of the novel, The Great Gatsby through the narrator: Nick Carraway.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. Jay Gatsby, the cryptic main character from F. Scott. Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is a man who has traveled through many rough roads throughout his life. These troubles that Gatsby had to overcome range from fighting in the war, losing the love of his life, and many shady dealings to obtain finances. Despite Gatsby’s life of controversy, many unanswered questions, and a plethora of luck, Gatsby is considered a man of many successes. Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbor and close friend, considers Gatsby to have achieved greatness. Nick sees a greatness in Gatsby that he has never seen in any other man; unfortunately, all great characters do not always have happy endings. Gatsby’s
“The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays a world filled with rich societal happenings, love affairs, and corruption. Nick Carraway is the engaged narrator of the book, a curious choice considering that he is in a different class and almost in a different world than Gatsby and the other characters. Nick relates the plot of the story to the reader as a member of Gatsby’s circle. He has ambivalent feelings towards Gatsby, despising his personality and corrupted dream but feeling drawn to Gatsby’s magnificent capacity to hope. Using Nick as a moral guide, Fitzgerald attempts to guide readers on a journey through the novel to illustrate the corruption and failure of the American Dream. To achieve this, Nick’s credentials as a reliable narrator are carefully established and reinforced throughout the story.
Throughout “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald an image of greatness is portrayed. In my opinion, Gatsby is not great. Although he is a caring person and his intentions are good with what he does, he is not great. Social class, insecurities, and love sway Gatsby’s decision to be the way he is. Bootlegging and lying are the qualities that do not make him great. His greatness diminishes throughout this novel. Throughout this novel there is a difference between perceived greatness and actual greatness. Overall, Gatsby was not great.