The Theme Of Reality In The Great Gatsby

Humans use coping mechanisms to ease the pain of dealing with reality. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby tries to gain the affection of a long lost love, but because he worries that this love is unrequited, he resorts to alternative methods to attempt at achieving his goals. Fitzgerald demonstrates that though denial and deception create a safe but false existence, the truth always prevails and the disillusioned are forced to face their fears directly.

Before the world war had started, Gatsby was already in the period of time where he was courting Daisy. However after the war, Gatsby extends his period over time in order to obtain a socially acceptable rank in order to marry Daisy. It was during this period of extending time that Daisy fell under the pressure of her family to marry Tom Buchanan. When Gatsby returns to the United States, he realizes that he had lost Daisy and then proceeds to further increase his social status through bootlegging in the guise of drugstores. It is then during this period that Gatsby wants to erase the five years of time during which he was gone, from not only his life, but also Daisy’s. When Nick retorts to Gatsby’s idea, he exclaims to him “‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’”(Fitzgerald, 110). Near the end of the novel, Gatsby is invited along with Nick to the Buchanon’s for lunch, there, Gatsby sees Daisy and Tom’s child for the first time and Nick describes it as genuine surprise and that he believes that Gatsby “never believed in its existence before” (Fitzgerald, 117). The introduction of Daisy’s daughter

This is noticeable when he is talking to Nick. He thinks he can fix everything which we see when he is talking to Nick, “ ‘ I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,’ Gatsby said, and nodding determinedly. ‘She’ll see.’ ”(110). At this point in the novel Gatsby sees how close his goal is, but he feels that the only way to get Daisy is to repeat the past and ignore the present, so she can feel the way she did about Gatsby before she met Tom. All the characters in this book will do anything to repeat the past, and do not see all the opportunities in front of them. Yet they are living in the roaring twenties, when everyone was trying to move forward with there lives. This idea from society is ironic to the characters in the book, because society is taking advantage of these opportunities of being wealthy, getting jobs, and living in the moment. Ironically Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom are living in the past, trying to take advantage of of opportunities that have already ended, specifically with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship.

“She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!” (Fitzgerald 123). People saw Gatsby as the epiphany of the American Dream. But what actually was the “American Dream”? The American Dream was people who craved money and wealth, both of which Gatsby had attained. Money would allow them to obtain everything they could ever dream of, solve all their problems, most importantly, give them a social status, and with money and status came happiness. “I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby was constantly throwing huge parties with everyone around town showing up uninvited, when in reality, he did it all for one person, Daisy. Gatsby contained the best possessions money could buy, a mansion, clothes, books, cars, etc. “As soon as I arrived, I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements” (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby hired people to throw elaborate parties for him, he sat back and hoped that

When Gatsby reveals to about his relationship with Daisy, Nick’s relationship with Gatsby takes a full u-turn as it rapidly advances their association from simple acquaintances to close friends. Nick’s outlook of Gatsby undergoes a similar transformation. When Nick learns of the previous relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby’s actions make sense to Nick. The mansion, the extravagant parties, and the green light were all in the efforts for making Daisy notice him. Gatsby lives his life for the past life that he lived. He spends his life seeking the attention of his love, Daisy, and as Nick explains, “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…” (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby sought out the American dream in order to win over the love of Daisy which creates a different perception of himself to Nick. Nick, now knowing Gatsby’s intentions worries about Gatsby’s possible rejection, and then warns him that, “[he] wouldn’t ask too much of her, you can’t repeat the past.” (Fitzgerald 110) But Gatsby, blinded by love, strives to win Nick’s married cousin’s heart. Nick perceives Gatsby as a man dwelling on the past

62) Gatsby even asked Nick for his help to put him and Daisy in the same room together earlier in the novel. Nick agrees and eventually an affair ensues between Gatsby and married Daisy. This alone depicts exactly what Nick means when he speaks about how close Gatsby was to his dream and how it was almost impossible for him not to achieve it. He somewhat has won Daisy over by throwing his wealth in her face every chance he had. However, Daisy was already used to the lifestyle that Gatsby just newly acquired. This realization speaks through the next portion of the passage. “He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city” (pg. 180). His dream of winning Daisy back is trapped in the past because she is now married to Tom. Gatsby fails to accept the fact that times change and so do people. Daisy was not the same person he knew all those years ago. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything” (pg. 22). Living lavishly was not new for Daisy like it was for Daisy. She had traveled the world and done everything she wanted to do so nothing really excited her anymore. Despite her love for Gatsby, Daisy decides to stay with tom when Gatsby demands she tell her husband she never loved him. Her decision shows that Gatsby’s dream of winning Daisy’s love back was indeed in the past. The icing is put on the cake when Tom exposes Gatsby for

Although "The Great Gatsby" is filled with multiple themes such as love, money, order, reality, illusion and immorality, no one would probably deny that the predominate one focuses on the American Dream and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is the central of this novel. This can be explained by how Gatsby came to get his fortune. By studying the process of how Gatsby tried to achieve his own so-called American Dream, we could have a better understanding of what American dream is all about, in those down-to-earth Americans' point of view. The characterization of Gatsby is a representative figure among Americans as he devoted his whole life to achieve his dream.

Gatsby’s aspirations reflect the time period. The “Roaring Twenties”, as it is called, was a period of prosperity, and the Americans were obsessed with acquiring wealth, and thought that “those who have wealth should be splendid, happy people”

The great Gatsby is a classic novel in which money is centered around everything. All Jay Gatsby wants to do is live the American dream. Some say Gatsby did live the American dream. Though Gatsby made lots of money and threw tons of parties their was one thing he was missing. The thing Gatsby was missing was a peaceful state of mind and a lover. In this book written by Scott Fitzgerald called The Great Gatsby Jay Gatsby finds out the American Dream isn 't attainable by everyone.

The character Gatsby worked very hard for many years to carry out his dream of becoming wealthy so that he could get the girl of his dreams. Although he did not get the girl, he became very rich and could get anything he wanted and get away with anything. Gatsby set out to do something and he did so by taking all the opportunities given to him and making the best of it. When I think of The American Dream I think of getting everything i’ve ever wanted, but in this story it shows that you can take all the opportunities at hand, turn them into something good, fulfil all of your wildest dreams, and still not be

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925) explores the topics of illusion, reality and life and death. It examines the relationship between the surreal and the concrete, and it raises the following questions: What is truly real, and what is make-believe? Ultimately, through the motif of ghosts, the novel argues that living a lie, a world where the personality that you show is not yours, is unachievable and unsustainable in the long term. However, while unsustainable in the long term, Gatsby’s dream was also what kept him alive and vibrant.

The Great Gatsby is set in post WWI America and at the time, the American dream was for any hardworking person to be able to achieve success and happiness regardless of their background or social class. This was a time of great change and revolution with the roaring twenties and rising middle class.

In Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, reality is hard to except in the minds of several characters. From money to the real world, the past is something that cannot be changed; however, many forget this and fail to accept reality. Fitzgerald gives us several examples of the struggle between illusion and reality in The Great Gatsby. While Gatsby and Daisy live in an illusionary world, they differ from Nick who exists in reality.

For generations many have immigrated to this great nation know, as the United states of America, all seeking for their share of the American dream. The American dream is the philosophy that anyone can become successful through hard work and perseverance. The 1920’s embodies this concept like no other decade in American history. It is also during this time frame that one sees the perversion of this dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests in his novel, The Great Gatsby that there is a right and wrong way to obtain the American dream. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is symbolic for the materialistic nature of the American dream and its corruption in the 20th century.

“There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind appearance.” Said Albert Einstein about the relationship between appearance and reality. Einstein is telling the readers that people are discovering new things that were hidden behind illusions of what had appeared. Humans have to use hat feeling to see threw those appearances to discover the elements that form the reality they live in. Scott Fitzgerald uses the creation of illusive appearance but also writes a discoverable reality for the most of the characters in his novels. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates a strong relationship between the illusion of appearance