Why Is The Great Gatsby Great

Jay Gatsby manipulates other characters. Gatsby fails to love Daisy Buchanan; instead, he “seems committed to an idea of Daisy that he has created rather than to the real woman she is” (Hermanson 1). This idea of Daisy represents the American dream. Flaunting his money, Gatsby attempts to seduce the idea of Daisy rather than Daisy herself. Therefore, Gatsby deceives Daisy.

Gatsby has an obsession rather than a passion. He spent his entire life chasing a dream, only to be cut down by the same dream which he chased, he fell in love with his imagination of Daisy, and failed to accept that the real Daisy could never reach the standards of what Gatsby wanted. Gatsby didn’t achieve anything in his life his entire reputation was based on a lie in fact Gatsby himself wasn’t real he was an imagination and illusion created by Jamez Gatz on who he wants to be and that imagination lead to another imagination known as Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby can’t be considered great on the basis of his wealth and power as those were

Gatsby's strategies of winning back Daisy's heart are to show off his wealth and social status such as connecting himself with "Oxford"; living in a luxurious "mansion"(Pg 5), throwing lavish parties, dressed in nice expensive clothing; he even has "men in England who buy him clothes and sends him a selection"(Pg 92). Gatsby believes that with his money and material success he could buy anything in life including true love and happiness. Because of his obsession to obtain Daisy's love, he betrays his honesty and morality. With no other purposes in life, Gatsby ends up engaging in illegal activities. Therefore, it is very ironical that sometimes in life, good idealistic goal, somehow, is achieved by immoral and illegal means. This is the reason for the failure of the American Dream, and the tragedy of Gatsby.

      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

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…”

In chapter 8, Gatsby reveals to Nick what his life was truly like. While reading about Gatsby's past the read comes to realize how much he changed just for one person. Gatsby was actually born James Gatz, a man from a poor family who had fallen in love with Daisy. With the love that James had for Daisy he was willing to give her up to try and better himself for her. James had known that the only way he could be with her, was if he was wealthy. When analyzing this chapter, we truly see how much James had changed himself and left his family just so he could have money to be with the women he loved. Now it seems to be something romantic, however one should not to gain more wealth to be with someone. The reader will read more and find out that, however Jay Gatsby had actually bootlegged to earn more money. It seems to be that Gatsby had been worried about his social status just to have Daisy back.

Jay Gatsby is renowned for throwing the biggest parties in New York to display his wealth. In reality, these parties are meant to impress one person, Daisy, the love of his life. Daisy’s friend, Jordan Baker, confirms this when she tells Nick, “I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night, but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found” (F, 80). Unfortunately, Gatsby lost his chance to marry Daisy because of his low social class. His hope to be reunited with Daisy is the ambition behind his wealth. However, the parties he throws fail to attract Daisy’s attention and results in his self-doubt; this is seen through his attempt to ask people about Daisy. His uncertainty makes him desperate, which conducts him to use his wealth to throw parties for their use value. Even though Gatsby is now accepted as a bourgeoisie, he remains unhappy because he cannot be with the person who makes him truly

His lack of wealth led Daisy into the arms of another more prosperous man, Tom. Gatsby believed that he could win Daisy back with money, and that he could get the life she wanted if he is willing to pay for it.. He wanted to do away with time in order to obliterate the years Tom and Daisy had together. Gatsby wanted to repeat the past, "I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before. She'll see . . ."(p.110) Gatsby's romantic disregard for reality changes the American Dream with his dream that love can be recaptured if one can make enough money. The corruption of Gatsby's dream by adopting materialism as its means and love, beauty and youth as its goal is due to the corruption of the American Dream.

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,

Even though Gatsby was born James Gatz on a small farm in North Dakota, he was motivated by Dan Cody and Daisy to dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth and love. Some people might claim that Gatsby was able to achieve his dream because he succeeded in becoming a fabulously wealthy man in West Egg. However, this is only partially true, for Gatsby’s genuine American Dream was to attain Daisy Buchanan. Therefore, this novel portrays both the power and deleterious result of the American Dream (C. J. Dawson).

The Great Gatsby is told by Nick Carraway, who narrates what he sees when he moves by his cousin Daisy and Gatsby. Gatsby attempts an unachievable goal which is winning Daisy’s love back through money and power, even though Daisy is married to Tom. He desired to win her love by being prosperous, but he became wealthy by committing crimes. But what keeps him different, as Nick Carraway thinks, is that he is naive, self-importance, and passionate yet ludicrous. “Gatsby has "something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life" , and "an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person" , but Tom has a hard mouth and supercilious manner, two shining arrogant eyes, and a cruel body.” As compared to Tom, Daisy’s husband, Gatsby isn’t all that great of a person. He had one objective and did anything he could to reach that; Tom was naturally prosperous and got his way with no trouble.

The ‘American Dream’; a thirst for wealth and success. Many want it, but few end up succeeding in achieving full success. Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a fictitious version of someone who achieved success, and demonstrated his goals even from an early age. “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something.” (Fitzgerald, 116) Says Mr. Gatz, who was Jay Gatsby’s father. This quote demonstrates how Gatsby had always planned to become successful, even when he was at a young age. Another one of Gatsby’s ambitions is Daisy. Even though Daisy is married to Tom, he sets his hopes high as she is the love of his life. “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.” (Fitzgerald, 91) This quote demonstrates how infatuated Gatsby is with Daisy. He set his hopes so high that he wanted to be with somebody who is ‘Old Money’, which is perceived as a higher class; and, the person that

In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man named Jay Gatsby does everything in his power to be with Daisy, the love of his life. He is in pursuit of the American Dream, but rejects it through his ideals and actions. Gatsby also uses his neighbor Nick, in order to get closer to Daisy. He didn’t make his money in a legal way, therefore he corrupted the pure American Dream. Throughout the text, Gatsby continually tries to achieve the American Dream without putting in the work.

The transformation between James Gatz and Jay Gatsby is an example of how people can transform themselves according to their ambition for wealth and prosperity. The use of illegal activities to gain Gatsby's wealth is alluded to in the book, this shows the extent of how the American Dream circumvented the moral revulsion and pushed people who were crazy about money into crime - driving the moral standing of wealthier citizens into the ground. To Gatsby, his dream was symbolised by Daisy, Gatsby even says that her voice sounds like money, a direct correlation between Daisy and the wealth and happiness that Gatsby would supposedly enjoy if only he could have married Daisy but could still enjoy if he had married her five years later. His pursuit of happiness with Daisy was the ultimate cause of the degradation of Gatsby's morals and realistic dreams. This is because he held an unrealistic view of life and how he could recreate the past. His dreams had distorted reality to the point where when his rationality realised that the image of life and of Daisy did not coincide with the real life version his mind did not grasp that perhaps the dream had receded to the point of no return, consequently his dreams helped to