preview

Acceptance And Self Actualization Of The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay

Good Essays

Acceptance Leads to Self-Actualization In the early nineteen-hundreds, a humanistic perspective on psychology was starting to form emphasizing human potential. Abraham Maslow was one of the founders in this field of psychology and eventually introduced the idea of self-actualization, the process of fully developing personal potentials. According to the works of Maslow, self-actualization cannot be achieved without the acceptance of others. Maslow claimed that in order to accomplish self-actualization one must satisfy several other needs essential to survival. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” Gatsby struggles to grasp onto his reality making it difficult to satisfy his own needs. His character takes on flawed, dishonest traits that conflict with his optimistic attitude in achieving his dreams that consist of being accepted. When compared to Maslow’s definition of a self-actualizer, Gatsby fails to meet the requirements due to his lack of honesty, reflection, and willingness to change.
Abraham Maslow focused on human experience, problems, potentials, and ideals. Throughout his study of Humanism, he created what is known as the “Hierarchy of Human Needs.” This hierarchy places the needs of humans in an ordered fashion based on their level of importance. At the bottom of the pyramid is a person’s physiological needs, then their safety needs, sense of love and belonging, self-esteem, and then at the final tier of the hierarchy is self-actualization. Maslow claimed

Get Access