Snooze In The Great Gatsby

There are always certain groups in every high school that seem to stand out, the popular one, the wannabe, the nerd and the sleepy one. The popular one tends to always have someone to talk to in the hallways and has a full weekend planned. The wannabe is in the sought-after group, but never talks much and just seems to laugh along with the groovy kids because they are afraid to be rejected by these people. The nerd is always studying and never has time to do anything else but study. The sleepy one doesn’t do very well in class because... they are always taking a snooze. The only thing these people have in common is one thing, they all are in school and live in the same society. Naturally, you see all of these same people as you do in school

in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The main attraction, Gatsby, is the pursued one who everyone wants to hang out with and everyone wants to be. The pursuing one, being Nick, who follows Gatsby like a little puppy and doesn’t say much because he is too afraid of getting shunned by the so called ‘cool’ kids.. Daisy, who represents the busy, always doing something and does not want to be bogged down by that dumb guy always watching over her, otherwise known as Tom Buchanan. Mr Wilson, the tired, can never keep his eyes open because he is too overworked and the fact that he is just plain old! In this society, you see these four types of people, the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired which is represented by Gatsby, Nick, Daisy and Mr. Wilson and these traits stick with them which inhibits them from bettering themselves.
James Gatz thought long and hard about a rich man who everyone loved, which he aspired to be. That man eventually became Jay Gatsby. For being such a mysterious man, rumors about him quickly start to spread, such as that he is related to sir Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany but the truth of these is questionable. Now Gatsby, the so called perfect man can’t just have any other girl he has to have the perfect girl. That girl was Daisy. The one whom he had lusted for ever since that “One autumn night” that they shared a passionate kiss under the breathtaking moonlight (110). Gatsby was never the same after that. It was as if a carcass of a man had kissed a real girl and it never quite sat right. Gatsby, having all the advantages that he has had, has many friends, but not many friends. The people that came to Gatsby's parties were famous people who usually ended up getting in trouble or dead. Some of these people included;"...Russell Berry and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewers and the Scullys and S.W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young quinns, divorced now, and Henry L. Palmetto who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square” (63). Of all the people at Gatsby’s highly attended parties, not many of them came to his funeral, only 2 to be exact ,Meyer Wolfsheim and Henry Gatz. Wolfsheim couldn’t even go to his funeral for the reason being that he was”...staying with some people up here in Greenwich, and they rather expect me to be with them tomorrow” (169). From the girls to the guests at his party, when Gatsby was alive, he was popular. His guests had to be just as desired as him and he would not settle for anyone else. These people all came from the West or East Egg, which is where the rich and popular live. The shallow imbeciles that came to his parties to get drunk never cared about his, or anyone else’s well-being, as long as he had the best parties who cares what’s going on in his life. That man was Gatsby. Gatsby hung around these snobby people too much and soon he became one of them and Daisy sure knew that, She fell in love with the benevolent Jay Gatsby when this figure of his imagination was just new and not fully developed.After he came back from war, he was a changed man, a man who was distant and wouldn’t let anyone get close to him. A shell of a man that just wanted to be cool and cared for nothing else. His death was a shock to everyone, but didn’t affect many people. The fact that no one came to his funeral symbolises that he had a lot of people like him but he didn’t have many close friends. Being the popular person inhibited him from having friends or getting a girlfriend because he didn’t have enough personality to have any of these things. Jay Gatsby was a popular man, but that took a toll on him in many negative ways because to be popular, he has to keep people away from him to keep on partying.
Of all the people Gatsby knows, Nick Carraway is one of his favorites.

Nick is Gatsby's neighbor who apparently lives in a “small eyesore” of a house (5). His neighbors are so flamboyant that he has to write about them and as “one of the few honest people that {he has} even known” we can totally trust him… He comes from a generally rich background and knows the right people. The introductions of Tom and Daisy Buchanan is a prime example of that. He tells us that “Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I’d known Tom in college”(5). From his extensive connections, Nick also seemed to have an odd obsession with the green light worshiper. When introducing the magnificent and magical Jay Gatsby, he identifies him as the following; “ If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life…” (2). Living in a dump would be considered in the hood or literally in a trash can, but with a bunch of mansions but living with mansions as neighbors is not a dump. This frequent liar seems to have friends in high places which could give him advantages to being like Gatsby, but his flagrant obsession with this mystery man hinders him from being wanted by everyone and leaves him as a bystander. He hangs out with all the popular people, goes to all the cool parties and is in ‘the know’ but never seems to be seen. Nick is always there, but he seems to disappear into the background and lets Gatsby and the others shine. His spectator quality won’t let him be as great of an entertainer as the man who worships the green light, he will forever be seen but not

noticed.
Within Nick’s rich background, Daisy Buchanan is his relative. She is a lovely lady but seems to have some problems like only a sophisticated “beautiful fool” would(118).For example, about five years ago Gatsby and Daisy had a wonderful love affair but due to that love affair, she did not want to marry Tom. She did not want to marry him so bad that she got really drunk on her wedding night and “She began to cry- she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother’s maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn’t let go of the letter”(76). In addition to not wanting to marry Tom Buchanan , she also is a bit of a player. When she was at one of Gatsby’s parties, she says this to Nick: “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card” (104). Now Tom was not a saint either, but incest is where it should draw the line. By giving men the option to kiss her when her husband is here gives off the vibe that she also does this when her husband is not there. It gets more intense than kissing though. If it was not for her love affair with Gatsby, she would not be doing all these busy things to keep her mind off of it. She has been partying and supposedly sleeping with other men while she is married. Her young love for Gatsby is something she knows she cannot have so she tries to compensate by marrying an abuser and having affairs to get over him. This also may be to get back at Tom for being seen with the maid one day after their wedding night and never being faithful since. Daisy is a busy girl and the fact that she is so busy hinders her from finding love.
The flamboyant busybody by the name of Daisy of West Egg is much different from George Wilson of East Egg. George Wilson is the worn out old man who is married to young Mrs. Myrtle Wilson. He owns a tire shop in East Egg, which seems to get a lot of business which makes him very tired, Myrtle can't stand when he is tired or basically anything else that he does. When Nick met Myrtle for the first time, Catherine, Myrtle’s sister, told him that Tom and Myrtle “...{can't} stand the person they’re married to…. What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them. If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away” (33). But as Daisy continued to stay with Tom and Myrtle continued to stay with George trouble started to arise. George continued to be “... all run down” and Myrtle continued to have an affair and it was the same old, same old until that fateful night (123). Myrtle and George were fighting and she started walking across the road, still yelling at him when, BAM! A car ran her right over, cutting her in two. Mr. Wilson was shocked and devastated. But then something snapped in the poor, withering man so he sought revenge and he knew just where to find it. He shot Mr. Gatsby in his pool and then did the same to himself knowing his job was complete. This sharp shift in personality for Mr. Wilson is a sign that people can break out of their old ways but not for the better. He was a very normal, tired old man, but then once he witnessed a murder his character changed to an obsessive murdering monster. The poor old man was a very nice tired person but then he shifted and became his own worst nightmare.
To conclude, Gatsby was a sought after person which wasn’t good for him in the long run and Nick wanted to be that which lead to his obsession. Daisy wanted to be loved in a real way not just being a traditional housewife who eventually gets replaced by her husband’s new whore. Compensation for having to watch your wife die is to adopt a new personality, so that’s exactly what George Wilson did, All of these people are left stuck with this character that they have created for themselves. They are drowning in these characteristics that inhibits them from having a personality beyond it, much like school cliques. The only one that changed was Mr. Wilson and that was not for the better. Their lack of open mindedness caused them this life that they did not want.The money causes them to feel like they are flexible people cause they can just give away money but this proves that they are not very sustainable people. The rich are indeed the poor of heart.