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The Great Gatsby Analysis

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The experiences a person goes through early in their lives inevitably influences their outlook on the world as they forge their future. A person’s past can affect their actions as they make the go about their daily lives. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a slave to his past, obsessively working to regain the love he once lost. Gatsby embarks on his heroic journey to make his dreams a reality; however, his sentimental attachment to his past prevents him from fulfilling his dreams. Born James Gatz to shiftless farm people, Gatsby always had big plans for himself. From an early age, he had a “Platonic conception of himself”, he saw himself as a “...son of God” (104). Gatsby believed he was untouchable, able to obtain whatever he dreamed. Determined to change his fate, he “invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (104). Gatsby designs a new persona, seemingly perfect in every way. He believes he is the center of the universe, and that he is unstoppable. This overpowering confidence eventually lures Gatsby into engaging in the illegal alcohol business to obtain easy money, and also generates a false belief that his money would be able to help him in getting Daisy back. During his younger years, Gatsby was a fairly innocent boy, opting to sail the seas with millionaire Dan Cody and inheriting an education that was “the vague contour of Jay

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