The Great Gatsby

Coralie Casimir
A.P English 11
Mr. George
July 31, 2009
Essay
The Great Gatsby
In the American society, the pursuit of happiness is something that has been glorified ever since this country was built. Many people work most of their whole lives to achieve the American Dream. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald tried to portray the non-existence of true happiness in material possessions and grandiosity. Happiness can truly be appreciated through one’s struggles. The story narrates the life of Jay Gatsby, through the eyes of Nick Carraway. Gatsby wanted to rekindle his old love affair with Daisy Buchanan, who was now his neighbor’s wife. He believed that the only way he could have her back was by impressing her with his wealth. Moreover, gaining Daisy would complete Gatsby’s dream of total happiness. Gatsby stopped at nothing to gain his assets. Nonetheless, nothing happened according to his plans because Gatsby ended up losing his life, his prestige, and Daisy. Through his characters, Scott Fitzgerald displays that happiness is not something that can truly be valued without the hardship and struggle one must go through to obtain it.
Jay Gatsby was a very rich man who had everything he wanted in the world, except for the love of his life Daisy. He was born in Midwest as a poor man. Gatsby did not like being poor, so he changed his name and emerged into society as a new man. He fought in the Great War and, after he came back, gained much of his wealth in suspicious ways. He did this to gain enough money, to impress Daisy. Gatsby centered his whole life on Daisy. What he was willing to do anything to get rich and gain Daisy’s love, even if it was absurd. Gatsby fabricated his whole life upon a lie all for a materialistic and useless girl.
Jay Gatsby was a man no one really knew anything about. He was first introduced in the novel as a mysterious character and no one had solid information regarding his life. Everything speculated about him were just rumors, some more absurd then other. At one of his parties two girls claimed, “somebody told [them] they thought he killed a man” (Fitzgerald 44). At his lavish parties that he threw every Saturday, he surrounded himself by important people. Most people seemed to be impressed by what he had, not much who he was. In the beginning of the novel, it seemed like he knew everyone. Most of Gatsby’s friends came with the money and the wealth, because when he lost his life all the friends that attended his parties had vanished. Out of the hundreds of people who attended his social gatherings every week, only one had the decency to come to his funeral. It was Nick Carraway, which he met the not long before he died. Not even Daisy, the woman he loved and essentially died for could not stand at his funeral nor send flower expressing her condolences.
Jay Gatsby’s abandonment in his tough situation was not surprising. Gatsby himself did not frequent those people so he could befriend them, but he wanted to use them as props in his big scheme to gain Daisy back. Everything in his house or life was for Daisy’s love. When she went to his house, “he valued everything in his house according to the response is drew form her well-loved eyes” (91). Jay Gatsby’s life was for Daisy. Gatsby was not able to realize that if Daisy really loved him, his money would not be something of interest. Nonetheless, he became so obsess with her that he got involved in criminal activities to gain his riches.
Jay Gatsby did not gain his social status with all honesty. He lied to Daisy and all of his other acquaintances. Jay Gatsby was not even his real name, “he changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witness the beginning of his career” (98). His real name was James Gatz. Jay Gatsby did not work from the ground up to gain is fortune. He just created a name for himself at the top when he got enough money to afford the life that Daisy would have wanted from him. Gatsby was never able to feel blissful for his work because of his obsession with Daisy. He did not feel the satisfaction of actually working to obtain something great like his wealth or his house. Because in his eyes his life would not completed without her. He had it all but he still longed for something that no longer belonged to him and would ultimately cause his downfall, Daisy’s love.
Daisy seemed to have everything handed to her. Struggling to obtain something was not something she was known for. Her whole marriage to Tom Buchanan was based on a fictitious love. Daisy stilled loved who she taught was Jay Gatsby when she married Tom. Gatsby asked Daisy to wait for him to come back from the war, but she became overwhelmed with boredom and not having someone close by to show her love and affection, she married Tom Buchanan: “The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake” (35). Daisy liked things to be easy for her and waiting for Gatsby was something she could not be bothered with. So she settled for the next best thing. Tom was handsome and very wealthy. She did not love him but he provided for her, so it seemed, to compensate for everything else. It was clear that she was having problems in her marriage but was willing to stay. Tom had a mistress, Myrtle Wilson the wife of his friend George Wilson, in New York that Daisy knew and did nothing about. Daisy’s happiness was a whole façade. She played the good wife and the happy mother but none of it was real. On the other hand, Daisy is not as naïve as she is led to believe. She knew what she wanted and would sacrifice her happiness to obtain it.
One day, when Daisy had Gatsby over to her house. For a moment, she seemed to be madly in love with him. Then hours later when they went to New York and Gatsby confided to Tom that she was in love with him, Tom was able to dissuade Daisy from being with Gatsby, a risky character that gained his money in criminal activities. She quickly eradicated the thought of being with Gatsby from her mind. Even though hours earlier, she had told Gatsby that, “she was in love with him” (119). Daisy simply could not afford taking a risk in the name of love. Tom who was an arrogant person told Daisy to go home with Gatsby. Moreover, things took a turn for the worst when Daisy hit and killed Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress, while she was driving home with Gatsby. Gatsby who was blinded by his love for Daisy decided to take the blame for killing George Wilson’s wife.
George Wilson was outraged by his wife’s murder and would stop at nothing until he got his revenge. Tom, who heard Wilson say something about a yellow car coming from the city, knew it was Gatsby’s. He seized the opportunity to rid Gatsby of his life and told Wilson about the incident, ignoring the fact that his wife was the one driving not Gatsby. Wilson had the insane idea that his wife’s killer had to be her lover. Wilson went to Gatsby house where he shot him and then himself: “Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete” (162). As soon as the news got out, Daisy and Tom took all their stuff and moved. Daisy wiped Gatsby out of her memory and moved on with her life. It was like Jay Gatsby was never a part of her life. She did not even feel sorrow or guilt. Jay Gatsby was gone now and memories of him where worthless to her.
Scott Fitzgerald showed that true happiness comes through hardships, sacrifices, knows one’s limits. Gatsby problem was that he spent most of his life trying to recreate the pass. He did not realize that the pass was the pass, he had to live for the present, and prepare for the future. He became an obsessed and naïve man who wasted his who life. All the time he taught he was working for is happiness; he was only digging an early grave. Daisy also never had the chance to content with what life offered her. She valued social status and wealth none of those thing were bliss. It seemed that both of the characters believed that happiness would come through material possessions which brought Gatsby to his demise and Daisy to her miserable life.