Rafaella Caetano Perim
Ms. Tilden
Period 5 English 11 H
26 May 2016
Dwelling in the Past and Dissatisfaction
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a diligent man, who tries to reclaim his past love through money and the high life in an attempt to impress the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. This mysterious man known as Jay Gatsby is more of a figure in the eyes of society, until he achieves his goal of winning the girl. As complications begin to arise, his memories begin to dictate how he looks at Daisy, which directly affects how he is living his current life. Attempting to save past love results in dissatisfaction.
Throughout the novel, we see the young Gatsby pursuing visions of the future that were determined by his past. His ultimate goal was to rekindle his and Daisy’s love of the past. Even though he comes from a less wealthy, under classed background, Gatsby does everything in his power to claim his place in upper class society, knowing this to be
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She of course falls short of his expectations, because she had faced reality and moved on with her life while he'd been attempting to revitalize their lost love. Gatsby doesn't clearly see that she had a child or that she was married, the only thing he can see clearly is the Daisy that had been in his mind’s eye ever since they first fell in love and this was the person he wanted now. He failed to realize that as people grow they change so he was completely in love with a person who no longer truly existed. The narrator proves this by mentioning: “there must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion… no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly
In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby functions under the illusion that Daisy is perfect and is living in such distress because she was forced to marry Tom due to Gatsby being away at war and being poor. This illusion leads Gatsby to spend his entire adult life pining after Daisy and cheating his way up the social and economic ladder in order to win her over. Gatsby believes that Daisy will someday come back to him because she loves him so much and they will live happily ever after together.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby tells the story of wealthy Jay Gatsby and the love of his life Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby dream was to secure Daisy just as things were before he left to the war. His impression was that Daisy will come to him if he appears to be rich and famous. Gatsby quest was to have fortune just so he could appeal more to Daisy and her social class.But Gatsby's character isn't true to the wealth it is a front because the money isn't real. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the rumors surrounding Jay Gatsby to develop the real character he is. Jay Gatsby was a poor child in his youth but he soon became extremely wealthy after he dropped out of college and became a successful man and create a new life for himself through the organized crime of Meyer
Daisy's greed can best be seen in her choice of a husband, and in the circumstances
Gatsby is unrealistic. He believes he can relive the past and rekindle the flame he and Daisy once had. He is lost in his dream and accepts that anything can be repeated, "Can't repeat the past…Why of course you can!" (116, Fitzgerald). For Gatsby, failure to realize this resurrection of love is utterly appalling. His whole career, his conception of himself and his life is totally shattered. Gatsby's death when it comes is almost insignificant, for with the collapse of his dream, he is spiritually dead.
Fitzgerald, like Jay Gatsby, while enlisted in the army, fell in love with a girl who was enthralled by his newfound wealth. After he was discharged, he devoted himself to a lifestyle of parties and lies in an attempt to win the girl of his dreams back. Daisy, portrayed as Fitzgerald’s dream girl, did not wait for Jay Gatsby; she was consumed by the wealth the Roaring Twenties Era brought at the end of the war. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents the themes of wealth, love, memory/past, and lies/deceit through the characters Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.
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).
The Great Gatsby is a story involving Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man who strives for a beautiful socialite named Daisy Buchanan. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald is known for his eloquent use of language to add meaning beyond the novel’s surface by using imagery to figuratively appeal to his readers’ physical senses. Fitzgerald employs imagery in the form of colors, flowers, and seasons to symbolize the harsh realities of the corrupt unobtainable American dream.
Daisy’s original impression of Gatsby is evident in her early letters to him, “...he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself- that he was fully able to take care of her” (149). Daisy loved Gatsby under the false hope that they belonged to the same social class. She grew up surrounded by riches, never working a day in her life, and she could not comprehend the struggles of a man who must work for the food he eats each day. Daisy knew that she must marry when she is beautiful, for being a beautiful rich girl of good social standing was her highest commodity and most valuable chip in marrying well. In order to live a secure life, she had to find someone the had the means to provide for her extravagant lifestyle, and the deep care for her that would allow Daisy to do as she pleased. The only definition of love Daisy knew was one of disillusioned power and commitments under false pretenses in order to keep the wealthy continually rich. Daisy acknowledges the false pretenses of marriage for the wealthy in how she describes her daughter’s future. She tells Nick, “‘And I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this
“He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it; he did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (Fitzgerald, 180). This novel, The Great Gatsby, was written by an insightfully amorous man names F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story was, loosely, based off of his life of love, trouble, parties, and death. The Great Gatsby is a story about an observant unbiased man named Nick Carraway who helps out young proscribed love. But he fails to perceive the foreshadowed future of the two estranged couple that is Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Throughout the entire novel, all the way till the end, Gatsby never gives up on his hope to win Daisy over from Tom. Whenever Gatsby feels that he has won, something happens that brings everyone, including him, disappointment.
Jay Gatsby is truly not so great in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, concluding in this essay that Gatsby is not the person who he comes across as in the novel. This novel is full of illusions that are hard to see, but it is up to the reader to find them. Always keep an eye out while reading this novel; the illusions come out of nowhere in such obvious yet so simple scenes that readers tend to over look. Gatsby does bad things with good intentions, he is a criminal and a liar but all to achieve the American dream and pursue Daisy, the love of his life.
Jay Gatsby grew up in a family where money was not an easy thing to come by, but he was determined to change his social standing. He worked hard and dedicated himself
Scott Fitzgerald also explores a moral issue, but regarding a different facet of life. The Great Gatsby tells of Jay Gatsby 's desperate efforts to reunite himself with the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. The obstacle comes in when it is learned that Daisy is already married to another man. Despite this fact, Gatsby goes to great lengths to win the heart of Daisy. Jay came from a very poor and humble background while Daisy came from the complete opposite. After the war that separated the two lovers was over, Gatsby made a fortune from an illegal source, which is assumed to be bootlegging, to try to capture the attention of Daisy. Fitzgerald explores a moral issue through Gatsby in that to some, the act of committing a crime to obtain a desired outcome is wrong. Fitzgerald, however does not write the novel to foment that mentality. The novel is written in a way that Gatsby is seen through a bright light and that his actions could be justified due to his somewhat noble ambitions. This brings on the matter if anything incorrect could ever be justified or accepted due to the hope of a noble outcome. Fitzgerald brought this concept into question with the entire creation of the Jay Gatsby 's
F. Scott Fitzgerald brilliantly wrote many novels as well as short stories. One of his best known works is The Great Gatsby. In the novel, the main character Jay Gatsby tries to obtain his lifetime dreams: wealth and Daisy Buchanan. Throughout the story, he works at achieving his goals while overcoming many obstacles. Fitzgerald’s plot line relies heavily on accidents, carelessness, and misconceptions, which ultimately reveal the basic themes in the story.
The great Gatsby revels in the glamour and romance of the careless rich while seeing through the glitter to the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath. The novel tells the story of a man, Jay Gatsby who is driven by a love for a woman who symbolizes everything he desires. Daisy Buchanan is an impossible and unattainable ideal. Throughout the novel we see how Gatsby’s American dream progresses and the ultimately falls apart in the end. During the moment of significance the importance of time and past is emphasised as we begin to see Gatsby’s unsurpassable dream unravel.