Similarities And Similarities Between The Babylon Revisited And The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby views wealth as an image of success. Through Dan Cody, Gatsby learned the key on how to become financially wealthy and the inner workings of how to get there. He “taught Gatsby about wealth, about the accoutrements of money and how to enjoy them”, which greatly influenced Gatsby’s future decisions. Cody taught Gatsby “how to acquire prosperity” and how to handle it (James Nagel 117), which helps to elicit to the reader how he was very boastful and he was known for squandering his earnings and inheritance on parties, rather than investing in his future. Gatsby feels a sense of inferiority to his friends, Daisy and Tom whom live over in East Egg, the wealthier side of Long Island. When he hosts his parties, he is under the impression that he

Gatsby was employed by Dan Cody doing various jobs and during that time, became close friends with one another, and each had a trust with one another (Fitzgerald 100). Cody showed Gatsby the lavish things in life, and Gatsby held a tight grip on them and made them his lifelong aspirations. Dan Cody evokes in Jay Gatsby the appreciation for wealth. “To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world” (Fitzgerald 100). Jay Gatsby stares in amazement at Cody’s possessions, in Gatsby eyes, being corpulent in wealth and power causes bigger and better things for one’s self. The greatness of Gatsby comes through the willingness he has to make his dreams a success. Jay Gatsby’s dreams are the reason for his existence, and his purpose in life.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby was born into a life of poverty and as he grew up he became more aware of the possibility of a better life. He created fantasies that he was too good for his modest life and that his parents weren’t his own. When he met Daisy, a pretty upper class girl, his life revolved around her and he became obsessed with her carefree lifestyle. Gatsby’s desire to become good enough for Daisy and her parents is what motivates him to become a wealthy, immoral person who is perceived as being sophisticated.

After the war, Gatsby’s only goal was to posses enough wealth to bring Daisy back. He acquired millions of dollars from businesses he did. “Gatsby bough this house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (78). His love for Daisy was the only thing that made him the man he was. He was intelligent, rich and even famous, all because of her. He threw big parties were many celebrities went and were thousands of dollars were spent in liquor and food just to call Daisy’s attention. “I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night…” (79), recalled Jordan, Gatsby’s friend, one night. All that Gatsby possessed was only and exclusively to show Daisy he could give her the life she wanted.

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…”

Jay Gatsby and Benjamin Franklin share the view that one’s affluence and one’s display of it are the measures of one’s success in achieving his goal. If one truly has the money required to be affluent, there will be no need to display that wealth because others will inherently know that one is rich. In fear of being thought to be poor, Gatsby and Franklin both try to exhibit whatever amount of money they may have even if they do not posses the wealth they truly desire. Franklin searches for items of monetary value in order to accumulate the resources necessary to make a reputation for his name, while Gatsby seeks to acquire the “old wealth” of East Egg in order to win the heart of his loved one, Daisy. The description of Gatsby’s personal library reveals that he only throws elaborate parties in order to prove to Daisy that he has acquired the money necessary to support a relationship with her, when in reality he can never achieve that status. During Nick’s first visit to Gatsby’s mansion for one of his lavish parties,

Jay Gatsby, while wildly successful in achieving wealth, does not achieve his personal Dream. Gatsby’s bigger goal is to gain respect from the community and reunite with the woman he loved - Daisy. Throughout the novel, Gatsby flaunts his wealth as an attempt to attract Daisy. When Gatsby and Nick are alone at the Buchanan’s house, both agree that Daisy’s voice “was full of money, that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it”, even describing her as a “king’s daughter, the golden girl” (Fitzgerald 65). The imagery and comparison of Daisy to a rich princess living in a white palace reveals how Gatsby views Daisy and places into context the motives behind his wealth based actions. Gatsby believes that Daisy married Tom in pursuit of wealth, and carrying that belief, he utilizes his own wealth in an attempt to win over Daisy. Not only does this show how important Daisy is to Gatsby,

The character Jay Gatsby the argument that money cannot buy bliss. Mr. Gatsby as a very wealthy young man. Gatsby has a massive amount of fortune that he could by anything that he pleased except for one thing in particular, happiness. With this money Gatsby tries win the back the heart of an old lover, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy Buchanan was related to Nick Carraway, who just happened to be neighbors with Gatsby. Jordan, who was a dear friend of Daisy and Nick’s, was talking to Nick about Gatsby lifelong dream she proclaimed, “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (78). Gatsby bought his large luxurious mansion that was located right in front of Daisy in search for her attention. Gatsby had bought that very immense and expensive mansion just to be close

Lavish parties, rich man, huge house, drinking everywhere, rich and poor. This is the lavish life of Jay Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a story of a man who has almost everything, Money, Huge house, but he is missing one thing, his true love, Daisy. He bought a huge mansion in west egg just to be across the bay from Daisy who lives in east egg. The central theme in the Great Gatsby is that you cannot have everything no matter how rich you are.. In the Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald shows many different sides of the complicated character Jay Gatsby, some good and some bad. While Gatsby shows many different sides of him, the sides that are most prevalent are his traits of having a complicated history based on relationships or

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby lost the love of his life. To get her back he ''bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores . . . and sold grain alcohol over the counter'' (Fitzgerald 108). This passage shows the readers that Gatsby's character has no limits to the actions he will take to regain his past relationship with Daisy. Thus, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s illegal activity to demonstrate Gatsby’s obsession with obtaining his American Dream, which is, in all, the love and affection of Daisy. Therefore, it develops Gatsby's obsessive personality and behavior. Second of all, Gatsby covers the parts of his past which he is ashamed of with his money and wealth. For example, when Daisy is over at Gatsby's mansion he takes out all of his fancy shirts that come from his stylist in England (75). Gatsby flaunting his wealth characterizes him as being materialistic because he is not trying to make an emotional connection with Daisy to get her back; instead Gatsby uses lust and infatuation. Thus, the author uses Gatsby’s actions to develop Gatsby’s materialistic personality. Finally, Gatsby's will to recreate the past is so strong that it pushes him to make unclear decisions. Decisions like waiting ''five years [to buy] a mansion . . . so that he could

Throughout the book Gatsby continually throws outlandish parties where scores of people, whether invited or not, attend and revel in his hospitality; he later reveals his purpose in throwing these overly grandiose festivals, when Nick and he are talking after a party which Daisy has just attended. “'She didn't like it {Gatsby} said immediately...She didn't have a good time'” (Fitzgerald 116) fully expresses that his entire life at West Egg has been spent in pursuit of a woman who could never possibly fulfill his dream. The 1999 “Gatsby project” discussed the portrayal of wealth in The Great Gatsby by talking about Gatsby’s car as a symbol.

“He took out a pile of shorts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shorts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their fold as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher -- shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue” (Fitzgerald 92). Gatsby is flaunting of his wealth and luxurious materialistic items believing that is the only way to gain Daisy back and make it how it was five years ago. Gatsby starts as a poor farmer boy, but throughout the years he desires to be more and have more. To him, Daisy is someone he loves, but this love is based on materialistic objects and status, causing Gtabsy to focus and base his actions on money and wealth.

Whilst Gatsby was very materialistic and amassed his fortune through dubious means just to impress Daisy, he represents

Jay Gatsby is a man of his heart, he is self determined from a young age to the gain wealth he possess. He comes from a family of poverty and hardship which is where his motivation to gain wealth resonates from. Gatsby exemplifies the success of the American Dream, but he has more fundamental personal dream and that is to get Daisy back. Ever since Gatsby had returned from the war he has wanted to reconcile with daisy and make up for the time lost. One of the weaknesses that Gatsby withholds is that he is unable to balance his romantic life with work responsibilities, he repeatedly leaves conversations with Daisy unfinished to pick up a call or speak to his accomplices, which leads the audience to believe that he may never be able to gain the

Gatsby’s love for Daisy propels his materialism, which leads to his ultimate downfall. Gatsby uses his words and specious actions to prove to Daisy that he is rich so she will love him by giving Daisy a tour of his house. Exploring Gatsby’s house is when Gatsby is careful to point out to Daisy his lavish possessions that are present in his many extravagant rooms: “We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing-rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms, with sunken baths” (91). After strolling through Gatsby’s house, Gatsby takes Daisy up to his closet and begins to boast about his expensive clothes so that Daisy realizes that Gatsby is rich, and, “He took out a pile of shirts, and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray” (92). Daisy’s desire and obsession with materialistic things is also evident because after she sees all of these shirts, she begins crying because of