Unrequited Love In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one which deals with theme of unrequited love. Jay Gatsby has spent the last five years attempting to find the person who he believes is the love of his life-Daisy Buchanan. However, Gatsby’s love is not received by Daisy, which leads the reader to question the motives for his love for her. Fitzgerald is able to achieve this through the use of certain literary techniques such as: themes, characterisation and symbolism. Through this Fitzgerald is able to convey a powerful message about the hurtful nature of love.
The extent of Gatsby’s love for Daisy becomes apparent during the exposition of the novel. In is evident that Gatsby is desperate to have her in his life.
“Arms stretched out,

I swore I could have saw him trembling (towards) nothing expect a single green light at the end of the dock”
Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism is evident here, to Gatsby the green light at the end of the Buchannan’s dock represents his love for Daisy. Geographically Daisy is very close, however, to Gatsby she seems almost unattainable. The light for the most part represents Gatsby unwavering hope that he will eventually be reunited with the woman whom he loves. Therefore, Gatsby’s hope is almost justified since in his mind there is a chance that one day she will come back to him.
As the novel progresses it is evident that Gatsby is willing to attempt anything in order to be noticed by Daisy. This becomes apparent during Nick’s conversation with Jordan.
“He waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths- so that Daisy could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger’s garden”
Gatsby’s attempts to show Daisy what he has made of himself in the past five year, perhaps in an attempt to make her envious of what she has lost out on. However, these ostentatious displays of fragrant wealth is lost on Daisy. She is blind to the people and happenings of the West Egg, to her anybody who lives on West Egg will never be as respectable as her or her husband. Since Gatsby is not “old money” he will never be respected by anyone on the East Egg. Gatsby has continuously tried to impress Daisy through his money but without respect his attempts to win her back will fall unnoticed. Fitzgerald, here, effectively demonstrates that money alone cannot buy Daisy love, she already enjoys being upper class so there is no reason to go back to Gatsby since she could potentially damage her social status.
During the climax of the novel, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is finally revealed to her in front of her husband. Daisy is shocked by the timing of this revelation.
“”I did love him once, but I love you too” The words seemed to physically bite into Gatsby”
Fitzgerald’s use of the word “bites” effectively demonstrates that this revelation has certainly had a detrimental impact of Gatsby’s hope that he would eventually get back together with Daisy.

He has spent the past five years attempting to impress her, all for Daisy to eventually dash all his hopes. Fitzgerald also gives the reader a powerful insight into the character of Daisy. Her indecisiveness demonstrates that she is in fact incapable of love, though she may be capable of affection she cannot comprehend a deep meaningful relationship. Daisy is in fact not in love Gatsby, this is first shown when she gets fed up waiting on him returning from war, she marries Tom. Now she wants to have an affair with him. After Gatsby’s revelation, he enters an altercation with Daisy’s husband Tom, out of anger that he may have lost Daisy

forever.
“She never loved you, do you hear? She married you because I was poor?”
Fitzgerald here shows the fault of Gatsby’s society- that it is driven by wealth and material desire.

Again the reader is given more insight into the character of Daisy, she married Tom not out of love but rather for the money and social status that Tom could provide her. For the first time Gatsby admits explicitly that he was not the son of wealth parents, that he was in fact born into poverty and earned his money from less than legal business ventures. Gatsby realises that he will never be good enough for Daisy. Daisy did not bother to wait for Gatsby to return from war rather she saw someone better than him and decided to end her relationship before it began with

Gatsby.
Nearing the end of the novel it becomes clear to the reader that Daisy is not in love with Gatsby as previously hinted. This is demonstrated when Gatsby is waiting for Daisy to call him at his pool.
“At two o’clock Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool.”
Gatsby still holds out hope that Daisy will phone him to arrange to meet him again. After waiting up all night waiting on Daisy to contact him, he still remains hopeful that she will eventually return to him. Gatsby waits however this in a way is ironic since Daisy never waited for Gatsby to return from war, she married someone who she suspected was better. In the end Gatsby hope that Daisy would come back to her ends in his death at the hands of George Wilson.
Overall F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” is one which deals with unrequited love between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald effectively demonstrates the hurtful nature of love through the use of certain literary techniques such as: themes, characterisation and symbolism. It is clear the neither party is fully in love with one another. It soon becomes clear the Gatsby is in love with a memory of Daisy from five years ago and not the woman she now is. Daisy was in love with the excitement that Gatsby brought to her however preferred the money and social status that Tom Buchanan could provide her with, something Gatsby could never buy. Through this Fitzgerald is able to show the hurtful nature of love; something which eventually led to the death of Gatsby.