Power In The Great Gatsby

As I approached Gatsby’s estate, I felt God’s eyes following my every movement, beckoning me to enact justice on the man who ripped my beloved wife away from me. The monster stole my wife from me in some sinful relationship without my knowledge and then threw her away like garbage when he was no longer interested. Gatsby hid away in his castle, protected by his wealth, and oblivious to the consequences of his actions. He may have been comfortable thinking that he could escape every situation unharmed, but God sees everything. God did not approve of such a manipulative man with revolting hauteur who expected to go unpunished because of his influence. I was fighting for all the people that Gatsby has wronged, and would prevent this

Gatsby’s books symbolize intelligence and education. This outlines the issue of appearance versus reality which is explored in The Great Gatsby. The truth is the books have never been read; Gatsby just wants to appear as an educated man. Much like anything else in Gatsby’s life, what is important is the façade he projects. Gatsby is willing to distort his past in order to win over Daisy. He deludes himself that Daisy loves him and will return to him. This is demonstrated when Gatsby says to Tom, “Your wife doesn’t love you… She never loved you, do you hear?... in her heart she never loved any one except me!” (Fitzgerald 124). Gatsby ignores the reality that Daisy has a husband and a daughter in order to preserve this fabrication. His lies reveal his insecurity and

Because Gatsby is standing alone, searching for the elusive Daisy, he is shown to not be content. He finds no joy in having all these people here if he cannot find his Daisy. He views Daisy as the person that will bring him to an even higher social class, because even though he is rich, he still remembers the social value Daisy encompasses because of her abundance of lovers. Ultimately he wants to swell his ego, to tame the wild beast, because Daisy wasn’t settled down before with any one man. Even though she is now married, he still views her with the same awe of when he first laid eyes on her at camp, even remarking that “‘Her voice is full of money’”(127) in reference to his percieved value of her when they first met. Quintessentially, Gatsby has narcissism flowing through his veins because he is attempting to recreate a past to soothe his remorse from when he initially left Daisy to fight in the war.

      Gatsby's tragic flaw lies within his inability to see that the real and the ideal cannot coexist. Gatsby's ideal is Daisy. He sees her as perfect and worthy of all his affections and praise. In reality she is undeserving and through her actions, proves she is pathetic rather than honorable. When Daisy says "Sophisticated-God I'm sophisticated" (18), she contradicts who she really is. The reader sees irony here, knowing she is far from sophisticated, but superficial, selfish and pathetic. Gatsby's vision is based on his belief that the past can be repeated, "can't repeat the past? Why of course you can" (111)!  The disregard for reality is how Gatsby formulates his dream (with high expectations), and the belief that sufficient wealth can allow one to control his or her own fate. Gatsby believes youth and beauty can be recaptured if he can only make enough money. To become worthy of Daisy, Gatsby accumulates his wealth, so he can rewrite the past and Daisy will be his. He establishes an immense fortune to impress the great love of his life, Daisy, who can only be won with evidence of material success.  Over the five years in which Gatsby formulates this ideal, he envisions Daisy so perfect that he places her on a pedestal. As he attempts to make his ideal a reality things do not run as smoothly as he plans. Daisy can never live up to Gatsby's ideal, though

The Great Gatsby is considered to be a great American novel full of hope, deceit, wealth, and love. Daisy Buchanan is a beautiful and charming young woman who can steal a man’s attention through a mere glance. Throughout the novel, she is placed on a pedestal, as if her every wish were Gatsby’s command. Her inner beauty and grace are short-lived, however, as Scott Fitzgerald reveals her materialistic character. Her reprehensible activities lead to devastating consequences that affect the lives of every character. I intend to show that Daisy, careless and self-absorbed, was never worthy of Jay Gatsby’s love, for she was the very cause of his death.

Society won’t let Gatsby and Daisy be together when they fall in love because Daisy comes from a family of old wealth, while Gatsby is the son of peasants. “For over a year,” as a young man, “he

He has gone to great lengths to make himself appear as appealing to a girl who never proves herself to be worthy of sacrifice. Gatsby creates a facade for himself in order to appear as a man who- in his mind- would be worthy of Daisy’s affection.

In many instances, Gatsby showed signs of selflessness. But, if the reader were to dig deeper into the roots of the story, they will be able to see that under the kind acts and good deeds, Gatsby’s intentions were always selfish. After the car scene, Tom, Jordan, Daisy and Nick returned to Daisy and Tom’s house. As Gatsby waits outside of the home, Nick, unknowingly, asks Gatsby whether or not Daisy was driving. Gatsby replies saying, “Yes, but of course I’ll say I was” (Fitzgerald 143). When Gatsby took Daisy’s place in the murder of Myrtle, although seeming kind-hearted, his only reason for this was to earn Daisy’s love and to impress her. Gatsby has somewhat put up an image of himself to be the pure and almighty man that deserves Daisy more. Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby’s business partner, mentions to Nick of Gatsby’s chivalrous actions towards women saying, “Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much look at a friend’s wife” (Fitzgerald 72). Although Meyer Wolfshiem’s comment on Gatsby about him being a gentleman, and how he would never look at another man’s wife, Gatsby proceeds to exceed all expectations and have an affair with Tom’s wife, Daisy Buchanan. Yes, some might say his only reason for doing so was out of true love and destiny but, in either case, it was morally wrong. In every action that Gatsby commits for Daisy, his selfishness secretly hides beneath it, shading itself from light so no one will approach the real man that lurks behind the curtains of self pride.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the God is one who does not interfere with what people are doing on Earth. He does care about them, even if they have done wrong, doesn’t try to change them, or their morals. He is described as a “watcher” (Fitzgerald 167). He watches people cause their own destruction but does not do anything about it. The role of God and Religion in Gatsby is evident in the lack of religion among the upper/business class, it’s effect on mortality, and the symbolism of God.

Throughout the novel, Gatsby exhibits his persistent ambition to achieve greatness. Firstly, when describing Gatby’s past, Nick states that Gatsby “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself,” illustrating his high expectations for himself (98). Meeting with Nick for the first time, Gatby’s father mentions that “he knew he

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a world lost to superficiality and greed. Falsehood and deception are the currency which fuels the characters in the novel. Dwelling in this fallen world, Fitzgerald has placed a fallen god. Gatsby is bathed in descriptions that identify him as the Son of God. Fitzgerald makes a conscious effort to clothe this character with imagery and actions to make him the patron deity of this fallen world, but Gatsby is too much enveloped by his surroundings to save them and is consumed in the attempt. Despite the biblical allusions, strong images and explicit statements identifying Gatsby with Christ, the prevailing tone of the novel prevents him from being a Christ-figure.

There is not much sincere encouragement of morality, and even at the funeral of Gatsby a reference to God is vague to the point of barely existing in the text. Gatsby himself is his own God, emulating the basis of God's essence: creation. He creates his own world and being to such an extent that rather than being included in the vast expanse of the territory over which the traditional view of "God" is all-powerful, he is "about his Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty" (104), and is so in his own territory. Likewise, no character has any strong inclination towards a traditional "God," but rather lives in his own perception of the universe.

Always Watching Religion is not a popular topic in the 1920’s. Christianity, in particular, is followed by some individuals but not all. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, religion is not directly talked about, but is indirectly brought up through characters and events. God is never actually seen throughout the novel, but he definitely plays a pivotal role in the happening of events. As one is already aware, God is always watching and judging everything that happens in someone’s life.

Gatsby seems to thrive behind the lies people have created of him. He has no intention of even correcting these lies about himself. Even among a group of people, it would be difficult to pick him out because even in the book, Gatsby “looked at me and smiled” from among a group of people (51). Gatsby blends with everyone and he just feels that no one should

Gatsby dedicates his entire life to Daisy. Without hesitation he devotes his own self towards her. When Gatsby realizes Daisy wanted money he immediately made as much as he could and flaunted his wealth to attract her attention. All of his actions are executed specifically for Daisy, and after all of that dedication Gatsby expects for Daisy to recuperate this unyielding love. The issue is that Daisy is married, she is not the perfect person Gatsby has imagined her to be, she has faults and over the years she’s changed. Gatsby is baffled at Daisy’s inability to “understand,” he wants her to be the same girl she was five years ago, and cannot comprehend that Daisy has changed (109). Nick persuades Gatsby “not to ask too much of her,” Gatsby disregards this claiming that she can always become who she once was (110). Gatsby choses to ignore the real world for the romantic fantasy he has of Daisy and in the end this drives her away. This internal conflict drives Gatsby throughout his life, and after five years of devotion towards Daisy he creates an unrealistic, romantic world he expects Daisy to fit in. The issue is that she is no longer the girl she once was, and now Gatsby must learn how to battle the internal conflict between his dream of Daisy and her