Why Is Appearances Important In The Great Gatsby

The desire for social pleasure was rampant in the roaring twenties and in The Great Gatsby. On the surface, Gatsby’s dream appears very materialistic. We’ve just talked about his fancy parties and his flash car. But if Gatsby’s dream was truly material, would he chase after Daisy? If his aim was purely material, he wouldn’t have been such a desperate romantic figure. We’re selling him a bit short here by accusing him of just wanting money. He is unsatisfied with his wealth, and pursues something greater – ‘true love’. Gatsby’s idea of ‘success’ was Daisy. Granted, you and I will agree that Gatsby could have done so much better. In fact, what does Daisy represent? Daisy has a symbolic name, and the way she gleams “in the sunlight” (pg 160) is merely a white façade covering her superficiality. The truth is, she and Tom are “careless people”, they “smash up things…and retreat into their money and carelessness…let other people clean up the mess they’d made” (pg 191). You may think Gatsby’s corrupt. However, clearly Daisy and Tom are the corrupt ones; they think they can do anything and everything, with the social influence and wealth they gained at birth. Daisy exploited Gatsby, his naive desire of “the golden girl” (pg 128), the ‘girl of his dreams’ – or so he believed. Fitzgerald also wanted a girl out of his league; Ginevra (Erbentraut, 2013). Very much like Daisy, Ginevra couldn’t be with Fitzgerald because of she was rich and cool and he

This greed is not necessarily terrible but Gatsby does not care for the large majority of the people at his parties. He was just selfish for Daisy and that was all whom he cared for. Gatsby just spends his money without care, as anyone with his lifestyle would, and is a very rash of him to do so since people can take advantage of him. This is seen at his funeral where only three people attended and none of his party guests were there. Finally, Gatsby surrounds Daisy and pressures her to love him even after so many years of them being apart.

The story of The Great Gatsby is a novel that consists of a historical American context during the Harlem Renaissance. This was an excellent novel published in the 1920’s and was considered one of the best novels of its time. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald was an incredibly talented poetic author. Fitzgerald was able to emphasize and create the mood of the generation in a political time. The novel The Great Gatsby is a remarkable novel but also a very sad one. The novel took place during an age or era known as the “Roaring Twenties” which was a time of American wealth. Politics and corruption at the time is possibly what made Gatsby to be the business man he was.

It’s a common misconception that money is equal to happiness, and Daisy is a sad, bored woman, afraid of the future. She is selfish and self centered, caring so much for the wealth that she believes will make her happy that in Chapter 7 her voice is said to be “full of money” (pg #). All the worse, when she kills Myrtle, she feels no remorse whatsoever, as she is incapable of caring for anyone but herself. Gatsby cannot see any of her bad qualities. He simply sees a beautiful young woman that he thinks he deserves. In chapter 8, Nick says that “It excited [Gatsby], too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”(pg#). Gatsby is blinded by his desire for Daisy, fueled by the wants of other men, that he sees nothing bad about her. Daisy loved Tom and Gatsby equally and for the same reason: Their wealth. With Gatsby dead Daisy returns to Tom not even shaken by his death, and just as nick says they would do, they retreat from the chaos they cause into their money when they move away.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in the midst of the roaring twenties, which was an age full of wealth, parties, and romance. Young people living in the 1920s were centered around wanting to find love so Fitzgerald, along with many other authors during this time period, focused his writing in The Great Gatsby on relationships and affection. Jay Gatsby, one of the main characters in the novel, is a very mysterious man but there is one thing that readers know about him for sure: he is utterly in love with Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby shows his love for Daisy in many different ways, including him waiting for her, becoming rich for her, buying a mansion across a bay from her house, throwing parties in hopes she will come, and taking the blame for the Myrtle accident. Gatsby truly is a hopeless romantic who will do anything to impress the woman he is so in love with.

Gatsby had bought the mansion so that he’d be close and similar to daisy. "'I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,' went on Jordan."(Fitzgerald 63) Gatsby hosted these extravagant parties to woe Daisy in hope the parties would interest her enough to attend. Gatsby is stuck in his past, he’d posed as a wealthy man at the party which they’d first met at and ever since, this has drove him to his money crazy.

Regardless of the fact that Gatsby does not care for large social gatherings, he continuously throws extravagant parties in hopes of Daisy being enticed by the glamour and therefore one day attending. Although his attempts go unnoticed he continues the pursuit to buy her love. This could be because he truly believes that he can buy her love or maybe he is trying to prove to Daisy that he is now (after their five years of separation) worthy of her love.

F. Scott Fitzgerald presents multiple themes and characters that have an overlaying façade that they portray throughout the novel. Fitzgerald’s main representation of illusion is with James Gatz or Jay Gatsby as he is known in the time covered in the novel. Gatsby can also be considered to be the embodiment of illusion within the novel.

When reading a book you should be transported into a world that you can both relate to but also learn from. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald you are effectively transported into the early twentieth century. You see many things that people living in 1922 would have to go through as well as things that are still relatable to today. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald shows you many images to effectively convey and highlight his themes of the innocence and lose of innocence, differences in social classes, and the american dream.

The great Gatsby suggests materialistic and possessive love through the relationship of Daisy and Gatsby. Fitzgerald shows this side of Gatsby through a metaphor “he took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them“ the idea of Gatsby throwing his shirts at Daisy is him showing off how wealthy he is now. Gatsby thinks if he shows Daisy how much money he has she will be attracted to him, he is trying to compete with Tom for Daisy by trying to buy things that Daisy would be an appeal to her. Gatsby had done all of this for Daisy because in the 1920s it was typical that wealthy people would marry other wealthy people and Gatsby was not a wealthy man when he met Daisy. Gatsby expects Daisy to be in love with him instantly, and for her to leave Tom for him “she loves me” he just assumes that Daisy would do that which is not the case, Gatsby is stuck in the idea that he can make

She loved the idea of being loved when it came to Gatsby she knew he wouldn’t cheat on her behind her back like Tom, but she also doesn’t want to leave Tom because of his wealth. But then again Gatsby didn’t exactly love Daisy because she was pretty and nice it was because she had money and had that social status the he had yet desired “Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly”(120). He knew that if they could be together his whole plan on being with her and becoming a succesfull business man would finally come into view. He would no longer be apart of the “new money society” he would soon be emerged into the “old money society” and mingle with the people he so effortlessly tried to be apart

The novel The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. The novel is set in the 1920s in New York. The main character, Jay Gatsby, is on a journey to achieve acceptance in society. Fitzgerald uses motifs to emphasize that the characters Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle are indirectly responsible for Gatsby’s death.

Daisy throughout the novel was part of a failing marriage, specifically her husband affair with Myrtle. In the beginning of the novel, Daisy did not know she had an option to get out of her marriage, and could live a happier life with Gatsby. When Daisy first learned of Tom’s affair, she seemed embarrassed not for him but herself, considering this was not the first time Tom has had an affair and

One of the major topics that can be explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth. Fitzgerald uses physical location – setting- as a sort of short-hand for the various aspects of American society he wants us to care about. West Egg represents the newly wealthy, the gaudy and improper; East Egg represents the moral hollowness of old wealth, prim and proper but corrupt. New York stands for the pursuit of pleasure, while the Valley of Ashes represents the social and moral decay that has resulted from the unfettered greed and gluttony of society’s uber-rich. Gatsby was not ready and prepared for the corrupt world when he joined West Egg. He is constantly surrounded by evidence of the unhappiness that success can bring. Daisy and Tom’s marriage is an example for this symptom. It is full of deceit and lies and they are both looking for something different and greater. Gatsby is blinded by the fact that money cannot buy love. Therefore, there is a reason it is said that “money cannot buy happiness” - not that rich people aren’t still going to try in Fitzgerald’s novel. As a result, money is not everything, but for certain people it seems like materialism is. Daisy chose money over love when she chose to marry Tom over waiting for Gatsby. She ends up with a cheating husband and with all the money in the world, but no real happiness or sense of fulfillment. Her attempt to find happiness in her material possessions is typical for such

Daisy’s sudden, simple respect for the truth is startling to the reader because Nick’s perceptions of her throughout the novel are so very limited to her superficial manner … her stubborn honesty … is a logical outgrowth of her inner struggle to resolve conflicting needs. It is a brief, futile attempt to declare emotional independence (Fryer 54).