s on Long Island, New York.In the novel, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby has a dream that a majority people would
want to live. The dream is made up of things that may vary from one person to another,
but it is still a basic dream for most people. Finding someone that you truly love and that
truly loves you back is one part of the dream.
Being happy is another. The final part is
having wealth and being in the upper class of society. This dream that is pursued by so
many can endanger the future of someone because they never know what they would have
to go through to get it.
Gatsby's main goal throughout the novel is to attain true love with a former love,
Daisy Buchanan.
He knows that Daisy is married to a rich man, Tom Buchanan, so he
uses poor judgement and assumes that becoming rich will win her back. To be close to
her and try to increase his chances of being with her, Gatsby moves across the bay to
West Egg Island. Nick Carraway, the narrator and Gatsby's main friend throughout the
novel, is an acquaintance of the Buchanans and helps set up a meeting between Daisy and
Jay. Gatsby finally meets Daisy and begins to spend more time with her, hoping that she
will leave her husband for him. At the end of the story, however, Gatsby begins to realize
that his love with Daisy would not happen at all.
When Gatsby sees Daisy's daughter he
realizes the truth. Her marriage is real and he cannot have her. Fitzgerald expresses this
by writing, "afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I Nick Carraway don't
think he had ever really believed in her existence before.
" He also realizes that Daisy
likes the status quo and likes the security of being known as Mrs. Buchanan, so she will
not leave her husband.
Wealth is the only idea in the dream that is obtained by Gatsby, but it doesn't
bring him what he expected and desired. Gatsby built up his fortune hoping that his
accomplishments would bring him happiness. Once again, Gatsby's lack of in-depth
thinking led him to believe that if he attained wealth that Daisy would love him again and
leave her husband.
He also felt that gaining many material possessions would make him
happy, but they never did. He needed reassurance about his possessions, "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." Fitzgerald uses irony by having
Gatsby's automobile, one of his possessions attained by wealth, lead to his downfall. His
unrequited love for Daisy never dies throughout the book and is one of the factors that
leads to his death.
Happiness, the central part of the dream, is never really obtained by Jay Gatsby
throughout the book. In order to try to become happy through friends and fun, Gatsby
throws huge parties every week. Despite the fun and excitement at the parties, Gatsby
just watched and didn't participate in the activities. This is expressed in a more poetical
way when Fitzgerald writes, "A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows
and great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on
the porch, his hand waving up in a formal gesture of farewell." Nick is Gatsby's main
friend and even he didn't make Gatsby truly happy.
The only thing that could make
Gatsby truly happy would be attaining his true love, Daisy. Before he went off to fight in
the war, Jay was happy because he loved Daisy and Daisy loved him. After serving in the
armed forces during war, Gatsby spends the whole novel in an inspiring chase for an
unattainable love.
Through his failed attempts at love, wealth, and happiness, Gatsby becomes a
tragic victim of the dream that so many people desire.
Gatsby did all that he could to win
Daisy back but always failed and never attained true happiness. He moved near to his
love and became friends with her again. He became wealthy and tried to impress her with
money. He acquired material things with his wealth and showed them off to prove to
Daisy how rich he was. In the end none of it worked out, and Jay Gatsby was even
accused by Tom Buchanan of trying to steal his wife.
There are many lessons presented
here. One is that one should not change themselves drastically just for another person.
Also, wealth and material things are obviously not the way to win somebodys love.
Love is something you earn and cant buy. Finally, the only way to gain happiness is to
not desire things that require a great deal of changing to acquire.
Most of the time, if
someone truly desires something, they will only suffer. This is because when they dont
get what they desire, they are left even sadder knowing they wont have what theyve
wanted a for a long time. These are just some of the lessons that can be learned from
many of the themes in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby.
