Jay Gatsby is undoubtedly a man of great wealth, however, his
character in F.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby serves to demonstrate
the fact that opulence is not necessarily followed by greatness.Only
through other people's perceptions can one achieve this status, and Gatsby,
try as he might, failed in his quest for eminence to capture the reader's
support. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is a newly rich man in Staten Island
pursuing Daisy, his now-married girlfriend of five years past.Daisy's
ultimate rejection of him proves to be his most disheartening blow in the
story; we, as readers, also recognize this rejection for something else.It makes the book'stitleerroneous.
Withoutothers'approval,
specifically Daisy's, Jay Gatsby could never achieve excellence in the eye
of the reader. Daisy was the sole goal that Gatsby had yet to attain, and
he failed. Despite his great successes, readers of The Great Gatsby, the
assessors of Gatsby's greatness, cannot overlook this final failure.A
second detriment to Gatsby's virtue is Nick's view of him.
Nick's
character allows the reader to see Gatsby at less than his best.For
example, several times in the book, Gatsby shares with Nick his despair in
his failure to win Daisy over, and he becomes very melancholy.A look,
such as this, at Gatsby's weaknesses from the viewpoint of a friend
consequently leads the reader to the conclusion that he is just a normal
guy. Finally, and possibly the easiest to identify, are Gatsby's two
failures to comply with law and popular morals: his affair with Daisy, and
his illegal business. These two actions, though they make the book more
interesting, are not considered by many to be qualities of one who is
great.
For these reasons, the reader finds it difficult, if not impossible
to deem Gatsby great, and, by definition, this keeps him from being such.12/99
