How Is Jay Gatsby Selfish

Jay Gatsby, the title character of the novel is an incredibly wealthy young man, living in a medieval mansion in West Egg on an imaginary area of Long Island. Gatsby has many laudable traits. For example, he is filled with optimism and the ability to transform his dreams into reality. Jay is also extremely faithful to his true love, Daisy Buchanan, even to the point of death. When we first meet Gatsby, he is the aloof host of the fantastically opulent parties thrown every weekend at his mansion. It appears he is surrounded by wondrous luxury and is courted by beautiful women and the rich and powerful men of the time. Jay is also a very admirable character due to his status of wealth and being a hero of War World I, “In the Argonne Forest I took two machine gun detachments so far forward that there was half a mile gap on either side… I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration- even Montenegro”. However, Nick who narrates the book views Gatsby as a flawed man who is dishonest, deceitful, a liar, and a dreamer whom is searching for answers in the past, “he talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself, perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy… if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…”

I think Gatsby is a very great person because of the fact that he did a lot of things for other people, for example he did Nick's grass and decorated his house to make it look nice, even though ultimately it was for him to see Daisy and he wanted it to be nice it was still a nice gesture. No one asked him to throw all those amazing parties and make everyone happy. All though all the things he did were selfish and for his own good he was still a great person.

Although Gatsby came from humble origins, in order to win Daisy over he works hard to accumulate a fortune. Despite this, Gatsby does not actually love Daisy, but the idea behind her. He loves the illusion of marrying into her wealth to be seen as a greater man. Gatsby mentions in the novel:“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. “That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl.”(Fitzgerald 120) which shows his true desire for Daisy is her wealth, like a trophy. Another symbol seen often in the novel is the color green and gold. These colors symbolize wealth and greed. Gatsby is seen standing on his dock staring into a green light, which is coming from Daisy's house. This green light symbolizes his desire for wealth and an attraction like that of moths to light. Gatsby also creates a false image of himself towards the public. Gatsby claims to be well educated and paints the idea that he is an Oxford University man. He shows Nick pictures of his “past” and his library symbolizes his education. However his illusion is exposed as on a closer inspection of the books which are uncut, meaning Gatsby has not actually read them. Gatsby’s creation of this face can be accounted to the psychology seen

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

Jay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby, is really not all that the title might suggest. First of all, his real name is James Gatz. He changed it in an effort to leave behind his old life as a poor boy and create an entirely new identity. He is also a liar and a criminal, having accumulated his wealth and position by dishonest means. But he is still called ‘great,’ and in a sense he is. Gatsby is made great by his unfaltering hope, and his determination to live in a perfect world with Daisy and their perfect love. Gatsby has many visible flaws—his obvious lies, his mysterious way of avoiding straight answers. But they are shadowed over by his gentle smile and his visible hunger for an ideal future. The coarse and playful Jay

Jay saw her as an object that he needed to obtain, as evident by the fact that, “It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy, it increased her value in his eyes“ (82). Rather than settling down and truly loving a woman, Gatsby needed a wife that dozens of other men desired. He doesn’t care about how she is as a person, simply her value to others. He thinks he is capable of anything because of his extravagant wealth, as evident by his conversation with Nick Carraway when he explained, “Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. "I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before," (59). Gatsby is completely incapable of settling for anything, so he feels he is able to recreate his and other people’s lives, simply to please himself. Jay Gatsby is unable to have a real relationship with Daisy Buchanan because he can’t compromise and empathise with others, instead, everything has to be perfect in his own

The Green light that is seen in the Great Gatsby symbolizes Gatsby's hope for the future. The light shows that Gatsby will forever be a dreamer. The fact that throughout the entire novel the green light remains constant reinforces Gatsby’s dreamer ways. “ ...Involuntarily I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.…” (Fitzgerald 21). The green light is introduced at the beginning of the novel. The light itself is seen by both Gatsby and Nick, when Nick sees Gatsby looking out at the ocean. The light is something that Gatsby focuses on throughout the novel as an anchor. It brings Gatsby hope for what the future will bring to him. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that’s no matter- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning---- So we beat on, boats against the current….” (Fitzgerald 180). The green light reminds Gatsby of Daisy, his one “true” love. Daisy is the unchanging obsession in his life. Gatsby always holds out hope that he will one day win her over. The light allows Gatsby, even as a grown man, to reminisce on his younger days and allows him to be a dreamer. Fitzgerald uses the green light as a way for Gatsby to consistently connect to that longing. The need to be the charming rich socialite that throws spectacular parties. The man who fits the bill of the American dream to a T. While Gatsby was always hoping for Daisy, and using the green light as a vessel to not forget his goal, Fitzgerald was reminding us, the readers, that Gatsby is in

In the well-known love novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is a mysterious yet bold man. He is a man of poor background, yet his wealth topples even the richest of New York. His wealth stems from his shady and criminal relations to Wolfsheim and his associates. Over this time of business with Wolfsheim, Gatsby has acquired a good number of “friends”. The story reveals Gatsby as a popular man who knew many people ranging from police commissioners, to Wolfsheim himself.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “There are all types of love in this world but never the same love twice”. This quote alone was directed to Mr. Jay Gatsby, from the famous book, The Great Gatsby. This book was written in the 1920’s, with the narration of Nick Carraway, who met Jay Gatsby and became fairly close to him. Nick lived in East Egg neighboring Mr. Jay Gatsby. Living across the bay in West Egg was, Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Nick is learning how to be non-judgemental toward others, however, with whom he gets along with, they too were privileged. But not Jay Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is known for being great because he is optimistic and ambitious.

Jay Gatsby’s intense love for Daisy Buchanan is the fundamental cause to the downfall of his life. Gatsby perfectly embodies the expression “Love is Blind” as he overlooks the many faults and flaws of Daisy. The desire to win her requited love was one of Gatsby’s inauspicious dreams he wished to acquire as well as her affluent lifestyle. He is utterly enamoured by her aura to the point where all his illogical actions is ignited by the motives of impressing Daisy. His objection in earning the dollars and the extravagant parties he throws that is congested with uninvited guests are all based on the intention of capturing Daisy’s attention.

In the book, Jay Gatsby seems to be a loyal and determined man. Five years before the plot of the story began, in a flashback, we learn that Jay and Daisy met before. Not only have the meet previously before tea at Nick’s house, they were once in love. Gatsby has never been in love with anyone else in those five years, when he was separated from Daisy. He was in love with Daisy so much that he changed his life around; so he could live in a house across the bay from Daisy’s (Fitzgerald 78). Even though it took several years to grasp Daisy’s attention, Gatsby never stopped thinking about the women he loved. In fact, he created and kept a book full of newspaper clippings about Daisy (93). Determination helped create Jay’s loyalty to others.

Introduction Jay Gatsby is a man who is approximately thirty years of age. He rose up from an impoverished childhood in the farmlands of North Dakota to become magnificently wealthy. He achieved this by becoming involved in organized crimes such as illegally distributing alcohol and trading stolen securities. Gatsby was always ashamed and despised his past poverty, and had always dreamed of being wealthy and sophisticated. This caused him to drop out of St. Olaf’s College after only two weeks because he was unhappy with having to work as a janitor to pay his tuition.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a master author, in the essence that he could capture the entire past, present, and future of a character in a few words. The Great Gatsby is an excellent example of such, with many characters, but Jay Gatsby most of all. Jay Gatsby is a man shrouded in a cloak of mystery. The past of this man holds more secrets than the entirety of the CIA. However, this trove of secrets takes a great toll on the mental state of the man; with his early denial issues, regressive tendencies, and reputation to display active reversal.

Gatsby did everything for Daisy, whether it was throwing extravagant parties, to simply keeping the shirts she liked of his. Every single thing he did for the last five years was to get her to notice him. He picked out his house to be exactly across the bay from Daisy’s, where he discovered the green light. To Gatsby the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock was more than just a light, it was a symbol for Daisy, a symbol of hope, and a symbol for the American dream. He had come so far to finally be this close to Daisy, but she chooses to stay with Tom leaving Gatsby and his dream unreachable.

Gatsby’s tragic flaw is that his view of the world is inhibit by the fact that he was very ignorant and aimlessly trusted all those around him. Gatsby is optimistic, when Nick is over at Gatsby’s house he follows on Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship and with him observing; “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 illusions” (Fitzgerald, 95). This shows that Nick, his confidant and who encourages Gatsby the most, sees that Gatsby distinguish Daisy to be fitting and splendid. Gatsby does not see things as they really are and predicts