Politician Bob Dole once said, “The difference between possible and impossible is hard work and commitment.” Success is not only achieved through hard work and commitment. Factors such as privilege, social connections, and sometimes luck play a role in an individual's success. During the 1920s, Americans experienced significant social and economic change. In the Roaring Twenties era, Jay Gatsby, a newly wealthy young man, came to learn the false promises of social mobility. While he was known for throwing lavish parties at his Long Island Mansion with the hope of winning back a lost love, Gatsby comes to find the moral dissolve of society over the desire for prosperity. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzerald uses Nick’s favorable comparison …show more content…
When Gatsby’s father shares with Nick Jimmy’s (Gatsby) motivational agenda he illustrates his early determination: “‘Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy,’. And underneath: Rise from bed 6:00 a.m. Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling 6:15 - 6:30 Study electricity, etc. 7:15 - 8:15 Work 8:30 - 4:30 p.m. Baseball and Sports 4:30 - 5:00 Study needed inventions 7:00 - 9:00,” (Fitzgerald 105 - 106). Gatsby’s schedule highlights his commitment to working hard to achieve his dream and achieve the success of the East Egg High Society. Working hard develops a strong sense of appreciation and value, whereas the hand-outs given to the high-society people are not seen as …show more content…
The idea of remaking himself in an attempt to not only turn back time but to illustrate how Gatsby is serious about fulfilling his American Dream even with Nick’s reasons saying, “‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ [Nick] ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’ ‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” (Fitzgerald 69) Gatsby’s dedication to Daisy demonstrates how he can change and reinvent himself to reach his goal. Gatsby's ability for human connections and empathy contrasts the privileged's detached ways, which are seen as superficial. Fitzgerald’s description captures how Daisy was more interested in marrying for money rather than love when he writes, When “[Daisy] vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby-nothing. He felt married to her, that was all, she demonstrates how people with inherited money receive many extravagant things, while people with new money were grateful for lesser things because they worked harder for them. Page 92 of the book. To have his new identity validated by the old money society, particularly Daisy, Gatsby finds that his romantic pursuit of rekindled love is crushed by her desire to live the upper-class lifestyle. Daisy is an example of how the wealthy elite are portrayed as shallow and materialistic, versus
It’s the peak of the nineteen twenties, a time of great modernism and materialism in America. Stockbroker Nick Caraway, a new arrival in Long Island, resides next to a secretive billionaire who goes by the name of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby soon recruits Nick to aid him in rekindling flames with Gatsby’s lost love, Daisy Buchanan, who is actually Nick’s cousin. Although successful at first, the team encounters circumstances that divide Gatsby and Daisy from one another. This story is that of author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s highly acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby. Throughout the tale, the theme that the past is unforgettable is developed through the character Gatsby and his relationship with his long-lost lover, his obsession with material items, and his concealment of the truth.
He never wanted to give up on her, so he tried to recreate their past in hopes of rekindling a love they once had. “Gatsby's gospel of hedonism is reflected in his house, wild parties, clothing, roadster, and particularly in his blatant wooing of another man's wife. Daisy, a rather soiled and cheapened figure, is Gatsby's ultimate goal in his concept of the American dream. However, he falls victim to his own preaching. He comes to believe himself omniscient-above the restrictions of society and morality. His presumption extends to a belief that he can even transcend the natural boundaries placed upon human beings. He will win back Daisy by recapturing the past” (Pearson). Gatsby lies about his lifestyle including the parties, clothing, and almost all of the other aspects he reveals about himself, to impress his teenage love, Daisy, who also happens to be Tom’s wife. He believes he can win Daisy back from her husband by throwing lavish parties, and putting on a deceitful lifestyle in an attempt to lead her in believing he qualified to be one of the elite. “The book's chief characters are blind, and they behave blindly. Gatsby does not see Daisy's vicious emptiness, and Daisy, deluded, thinks she will reward her gold-hatted lover until he tries to force from her an affirmation she is too weak to make. Tom is blind to his hypocrisy; with "a short deft movement" he breaks Myrtle's nose for daring to mention the
Gatsby’s love life has become surrounded by ideas from the past. No longer is he able to fall in love with the moment, but instead he is held up on what have and should have been. He spends his time reminiscing on old times and previous relationships while he has also been building up a new life in order to return to the past. The unreal expectations he has for Daisy prove to us that he has trouble letting go of his old romantic ideas. Gatsby doesn’t want to accept and love this new Daisy, and instead he is hoping for the Daisy he knows to come back. But people change and there can be no expectations for someone to continue to remain the same after a number of years. Instead we must let go of the past and embrace the future for everything it could be.
Based on the consequences of the past, Gatsby’s priority is to earn a place in high ranks in order to win Daisy. Remaining faithful through the years he endures apart from her, Gatsby builds a reputation of being affluent, for her. He expresses his loyalty towards Daisy through the wealth he establishes, for her. In the hopes that she will return to him after seeing his newly gained assets, Gatsby flaunts his mansion and possessions to Daisy. Everything he earns plays an important role in displaying his wealth to Daisy, as well as his dedication to her. Gatsby devotes several years to earning a fortune for Daisy, never deviating from his original motive of living the past, except with Daisy. However, Gatsby becomes “dazed” because her physical existence erases the importance of his belongings. Even though Gatsby’s valuables once signified the path to Daisy, because Daisy is now with him, the items mean nothing. Gatsby proves consistency in his love for Daisy as she is the motivating force that occupies his life. Gatsby’s persistent hope gives him the belief that he can and will live his happy ending with Daisy. When Gatsby’s imagination of Daisy does not align with the existing Daisy, he tells Nick, “Can’t repeat the past?...Why of course you can!” (110).
He was as poor as could be and only gained any knowledge and hope of a different future from his parents due to a chance meeting with a rich and extravagant man. From him, Gatsby learned the ways of the wealthy and what it takes to be rich, however, he was never truly a member of the upper class. Just before Gatsby’s death, Nick comments that Gatsby is worth more than all of them put together, referring to the upper class. (154). However, Nick is only able to make this comment as Gatsby is not truly a part of the upper class that Daisy belongs to. Despite gaining the wealth, fame, and general appearance of the rich, at heart Gatsby is still the poor man that fell in love with Daisy five years prior. He lives in the past. Gatsby had no shot with Daisy as she needed someone who truly fit the constructs of the upper class, while Gatsby could never fulfill that requirement. Achieving Daisy would have been the epitome of the upper class. Lois Tyson writes in Critical Theory Today, “Possession of Daisy would give Gatsby what he really wants; a permanent sign that he belongs to her socioeconomic class, to the same bright, spotless, airy, carefree world of the very rich the Daisy embodies for him…” (71). If Gatsby had won Daisy’s love, it would have proved that he could assimilate with the wealthy. The failure of Gatsby to do so is a
Daisy is currently married and has a daughter. Despite this, Gatsby still wants to make it like old times. After all, his beliefs drive him to do crazy things. Beliefs founded on different principles, "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can...I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before. She'll see." (116-117) Gatsby's dreams drive him to do the impossible, change the past. Nick struggles to understand why a man would spend so much time and money for something that lasted so short and in no way in favor of Gatsby. "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" (117), the idea of a mutual love relationship with Daisy as it was in the past.
The American standard of success has always been defined by the effort put into receiving this success. Some are lucky and have success come with ease, others have to put in a great deal of work and even then they still fall short of their desired position. Throughout, “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald scrutinizes the collapse of the American dream through Jay Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the readers experience the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby’s successes. From the initial sequences of the novel it is apparent that wealthiness is the point of which you are judged in the time period the book takes place.
Gatsby is unable to understand the flaw in his plan, for in his mind Daisy “is frozen in time forever”and will always be as perfect and pure as when he first saw and fell in love with her (Miller 126). Gatsby realizes for the first time that his Dream cannot be a reality when it begins to crumble before him as a result of Daisy’s refusal to revert to the woman she had been when she was with him. When called into question, she finds herself unable to deny her marriage, the evidence of her past saying, “I can’t help what’s past … I can’t say I’ve never loved Tom” (Fitzgerald 140). Her life with Tom has become a part of her, and she can’t bring herself to ever cast that away. This revelation crushes Gatsby, leaving him feeling lost since all this time he had been “clutching at some last hope”, working for the Daisy she had been during their time together (155). Whenever he speaks of his goals, he says in a matter-of-fact manner, “Can’t repeat the past?... Why of course you can!” (116). Gatsby now sees that Daisy is not willing to change, and revert her life to fit into his Dream, instead “she [vanishes] into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby--nothing” (157). Gatsby’s Dream has been taken from him by Daisy’s refusal and with his Dream gone, the phrase “you can 't live
The American Dream The American Dream was the philosophy that brought people to America and to start a new life in a strange, foreign land. Due to this dream, it was believed that America was the land of opportunity, wealth, and prosperity. The dream consists of three components: all men are equal, man can trust and should help his fellow man, and the good, virtuous and hard working are rewarded. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a condemnation of American Society and focuses on its downfall.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel depicting higher class families and the progression of the 1920’s America. The book is set in Long Island, New York, as well as Manhattan, New York. In the book we are introduced to the main character Nick Carroway, his neighbor Gatsby, his old lover Daisy, and her husband Tom. One of the main themes throughout this time period and also more importantly the book was the idea of attaining and living the American Dream. In The Great Gatsby both Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby do not ultimately reach the goal of the American Dream due to the fact that they didn’t achieve their final target.
Gatsby’s aspirations reflect the time period. The “Roaring Twenties”, as it is called, was a period of prosperity, and the Americans were obsessed with acquiring wealth, and thought that “those who have wealth should be splendid, happy people” (Gross 5). Gatsby embodies this mindset: born in a poor family he considered himself superior to that, and his quest for the American Dream led to his own destruction. Gatsby was so fixated with his dream, money and Daisy, that he decided to acquire it by any means that he could. His obsession with Daisy is in fact an expansion of his obsession with money. She represents Gatsby's dreams: money, luxury, status (Rimmer).Someone might misguidedly believe that The Great Gatsby is a love story, that everything that Gatsby ever did was to conquer Daisy’s love, but the truth is that he desires her for her status, he wants her as the last piece of the puzzle to finally turn into Jay Gatsby, the high society Oxford man. “The tawdry romance with Daisy is the means Fitzgerald uses to show Gatsby the intolerable cheapness of his dream and illusion” (Bewley 26).
“If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire” (George Monbiot). In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the decay of the American Dream and the corrupt and materialistic tendencies of the American elite. The principal character, Nick, who also serves as narrator, is indecisive but attentive. He lives in West Egg on Long Island Sound, surrounded by immense prosperity and luxurious titles. Gatsby, Nick’s neighbor, is portrayed in an air of mystery and uncertainty, but it is learned that he is a man of around thirty years old who grew up from an impoverished childhood in North Dakota to become exceptionally wealthy. As a military officer in Louisville in 1917, Gatsby met and immediately fell in love with Daisy Buchanan for her aura of elegance and charisma. Throughout his novel, Fitzgerald focuses on Nick’s relationship with Daisy and Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker, and specifically on Gatsby’s unattainable goal of winning Daisy’s love through power and wealth. In the process, an atmosphere of superficiality, discontent and deceitfulness is created through the immoral actions of the primary characters. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby turns the American Dream into a nightmare by revealing issues of unrestrained materialism, moral emptiness, and social hypocrisy during the 1920’s.
Despite having loved Gatsby, Daisy has ended their relationship because Gatsby cannot provide her luxurious gifts, like the pearls that Tom bought her. After five years, Gatsby and Daisy have met and he has been changing his life in order to please her. Gatsby used Daisy as a motivation to become the man he is now, a prosperous man. We can see this in his house. “He revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes” (Fitzgerald 91). In Gatsby’s early years, he devoted himself to making his life better. Gatsby wanted to be in the upper class because more opportunities came to him. The luxuries that are provided by wealth satisfy Gatsby’s need to become an affluent man. However, this all changes when he meets Daisy and falls in love. After he returns from the war, and realizes that Daisy is married to Tom. Ever since then, Gatsby does not let go of the past and wants to change what could have been with Daisy. Daisy soon takes control over their relationship. In the quote, Gatsby waits for an approving look from Dai...
Although it could be argued that when the details of Gatsby’s life are revealed and he dies his greatness is lost,his greatness lies in the fact that his dream was not actually fullfilled. American literary critic Harold Bloom argues: “Whatever the American Dream has become, its truest contemporary representative remains Jay Gatsby, at once a gangster and a romantic idealist . . . His death preserves his greatness and justifies the title of his story, a title that is anything but ironic.” (Bloom 5). Gatsby’s material success obtained by illegal means challenges the perception that the American Dream is a product of honest hard work. It speaks of the point that achievement is very often an outcome of many different elements as opposed to only genuine work and excellence. He actually created a whole new identity for himself, he made a fortune and embellished his life with material belongings which he supposes will tempt Daisy to forget everything and stay with him. Although he presumed to reach his happiness by accumulating property, it was never his main goal. It was a means to an end to reach his indefinite object encapsulated in his cherished Daisy. His love is hopeful and idealistic and yet it is inseparable from materialistic means. From Gatsby’s father Nick learns how even before he created the illusion of Gatsby James Gatz was a determined man, who wanted to improve himself and overcome his humble beginnings. They find his schedule and the father says that “Jimmy was bound to get ahead.” (Fitzgerald 185). He believed he could achieve anything with hard work; ironically he got rich by illegal means. When he says to Carraway: "Can't repeat the past . . . Why of course you can" (Fitzgerald 118) what he implies is that he really would like to regain his previous connection with Daisy, rejecting the fact that she is married and has a daughter
Through lowering himself and basing the present off of unstable memories, Gatsby attempts to recreate his shallow past with Daisy. To show off the grandeur of his everyday life, he invites Daisy to his mansion. Nick observes that they are holding hands and notices that “she said something low in his ear [and] he turned toward her with a rush of emotion” (Fitzgerald 96). Also, when Nick points out that Gatsby cannot live in the past he says, “Can’t repeat the past… Why of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 110). Overall, "The Great Gatsby is very much a novel about