The Great Gatsby Selfish Quotes

Dream chasing can be a dangerous hobby. When a person focuses all of their effort too closely on their dream, they will ultimately find that they move further and further away with every one step forward and two steps back. In the novel The Great Gatsby, the character of Jay Gatsby is a vivid and passionate dream chaser. He spends his entire adult life focused on gaining wealth and recognition, in addition gaining the attention of a girl, Daisy Buchanan, who he met earlier in his life. In their time apart, she marries another and has a child with him, making it even more difficult for Gatsby. In attempts to gain the attention of his love, he throws extravagant, large parties that draw in hundreds every night, hoping one day she will too, walk

through his front doors. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is shown to become obsessive over Daisy and ends up losing her entirely due to this. Through the character of Jay Gatsby in the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald develops the idea that the disillusionment of the pursuit of Ideals can change a man from being exclusive and reclusive to gaining overconfidence and a false sense of safety. This pursuit of Ideals will ultimately shape them into being desperate and lonely, realizing that they have lost their chance of attaining their goal.

In the introductory portion of the novel, Gatsby’s pursuit of Ideals cause him to be a mysterious and seclusive man who is focused on presenting himself of a high pedestal.

Gatsby is represented as being very mysterious, which is due to him being focused on his ideals rather that his relationships with others around him. In the novel, Gatsby is presented as being a vary hidden man, even staying hidden and quiet during his own parties he throws. His party guests spread rumors about him being “a nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm’s” and that he “killed a man once” (35). These show that people didn’t really know Gatsby, and Gatsby didn’t know them. Although, Gatsby does not want these rumors going around about his name, because when heard by the wrong ears, it could lead to him losing his dream. Because of this, Gatsby is also constantly trying to prove these rumors wrong, by lying. He states that he “[does] not want [people] do get the wrong idea of [him]” and in this case he really means Daisy (49). In addition to being mysterious and deceptive, Gatsby’s pursuit of ideals also caused him to act passionately. The narrator describes Gatsby to “stretch his arms toward the dark water in a curious way” every night, which represent his unfailing pursuit of his Dream

(21).

As Gatsby reunited with his love, Daisy Buchanan, his pursuit changes from gaining her attention to maintaining it, this is done by acting overconfident, hopeful, and with a false sense of safety.

After their reunion, Gatsby and Daisy pick up where they left off, talking about old memories and future plans, Gatsby however does not see that these future plans are not entirely possible. He claims that he is going to “fix everything just the way it was before” and that he wants to restarts their new life together and leave the past couple of years behind them (118). This is saying that the pursuit of Ideals can cause a man to think irrationally and impulsively. In addition to this, Gatsby has a false sense of of safety, he states that he “wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and Say ‘I never loved you’”, obliterating three years of marriage with the statement (117). This shows how through focusing all of himself into chasing his dream, Gatsby sees his situation through rose coloured glasses.He sees only the good and ignores all the negative repercussions are at inevitable in his case. Gatsby is also shown to be very overconfident in his dream, acting impetuously and arrogantly. He confronts Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby goes to Tom and tells him that his “wife doesn’t love [him]” and that “she never loved [him]” (139). This caused Daisy to move farther from Gatsby, realizing his addictive and obsessive nature towards

her.