Illusions In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

1507 Words4 Pages

A novel written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby is primarily about post-world war American society where reality was often confused with illusions. Illusions are any misconceptions of the real world. This essay argues that the Great Gatsby presented us a period in which illusions eclipsed reality, where materialism overshadowed and influenced other aspects of life such as love, and other moral values. It will focus on the indistinction between love and materialism, the influence of money on moral values, the misconception of money and the deluded illusion of time portrayed amongst the characters in the novel. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald depicts the obscurity between true love and materialism that makes the love between Gatsby …show more content…

It is seen in Daisy’s decision in her relationship with Tom. In chapter 4, Daisy was at first melancholic and reluctant to marry Tom due to her previous affair with the poor Gatsby, however, soon after finding out that Tom was extravagantly accompanied by hundreds of people, in four private cars while hiring the entire floor of the hotel for the wedding and even gifted her a string of pearls with a massive value of around “three hundred and fifty thousand dollars”, she made up her mind and married Tom “without so much as a shiver” (p.144). With so much money, class and reputation, Daisy was immediately convinced and was able to change her mind so quickly and got married to him. Due to this one time hallucination, their relationship was hollow and artificial as it was not born out of love, but from different selfish motives. Indeed, Fitzgerald shows how money can make people blind, neglect other feelings just like how Daisy could stop loving Gatsby for the sake of money. As a result, Tom was also unfaithful after all, possibly because his love with Daisy was not true so he cheated on her by secretly having a mistress. Moreover, Myrtle, Tom’s mistress also cheated on her husband who is poor, for Tom as he was rich and was able to fulfil her desires. Although they might eventually fell in love, that the love between the characters in the story apparently began as an illusion, influenced by money, just to conceal their personal selfish desires. Thus, Fitzgerald presents to us the consequences when money controls people’s decisions and outshines noble

Show More
Related

  • Flaws of Perception in Society: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1123 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society nowadays can conform anyone, into whoever they want a person to be.Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, there is an interconnecting theme of the flaws of perception in society. This theme is shown with various characters throughout The Great Gatsby such as characters having their own perception as to who the main character, Jay Gatsby is, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale it is shown in the way of how the knight judges his wife based off of her physical age and beauty within, and in Brave New World, Bernard, one of the main characters, is in shock of what the reality of this “utopian” society everyone believes they live in actually is, he sees how messed up everything and everyone is, yet people deem him as the crazy one.

    Read More

  • Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson of The Great Gatsby

    1358 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lewis, Roger.  "Money, Love, and Aspiration in The Great Gatsby."  New  Essays on The Great Gatsby.  Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.  41-57.

    Read More

  • Wealth and Class in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class. Fitzgerald uses setting to criticise society’s loss of morality and the growth of consumerism after the Great War. The rise of the stock market in the 1920s enabled business to prosper in America.

    Read More

  • Wealth and Glamour in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1379 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: Gatsbys Illusion Of Himself

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    to him, something for which he can strive, so he puts all of his energy into

    Read More

  • gatillus Illusion Vs. Reality in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    462 Words  | 1 Pages

    Illusion Vs. Reality in The Great Gatsby "A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished," is how Goethe states not to mistake fantasy for reality. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many of the characters live in an illusory world, though few can see reality. Fitzgerald presents Jay Gatsby as a character who cannot see reality. Can't repeat the past?

    Read More

  • Jay Gatsby's Illusions in Fitzgerald’s American classic "The Great Gatsby"

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    In life, what we perceive tends to show misconception in how the thought plays out. A good example would be the character Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic: The Great Gatsby. Gatsby was unable to distinguish between his love for Daisy, a reality, versus the illusion that he could recapture her love by establishing and inventing a fraudulent past. He believed he could repeat the past, and acquire a flaunting wealth. In the novel, Jay Gatsby seems incompetent in establishing a difference between the realities of his life versus the illusion he made out.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Illusion Vs Reality Essay

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    What distinguishes a dream from reality? Many combine the two, often creating confusing and disappointing results. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the impact that reality has on an individual by examining the life of Jay Gatsby. This twentieth-century piece of literature holistically portrays the Jazz Age and accurately captures life in the 1920s. This decade was a time in which many individuals strove towards fulfilling the American Dream. The extravagant and lavish lifestyle which many people lived depicted their romantic desire for wealth. This constant greed and artificial attitude consequentially produced fantastic misconceptions of reality. Jay Gatsby’s life parallels the lives of those who lived during the 1920s because similarly to Gatsby, they too had no astonishing beginnings and created deceptions that were the only route to the American dream. The significance of understanding the difference between what is fantasy and what is reality is crucial, as Gatsby is the epitome of the result of dreams dictating a person’s actions. Fitzgerald suggests that fantasy never matches reality and successfully proves this by comparing the fantasy that Gatsby creates to reality.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby is No Love Story

    1341 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lewis, Roger.  "Money, Love, and Aspiration in The Great Gatsby."  New  Essays on The Great Gatsby.  Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.  41-57.

    Read More

  • Significance Of The Mafia In The Great Gatsby

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is an American novel of hope and longing, and is one of the very few novels in which “American history finds its figurative form (Churchwell 292).” Gatsby’s “greatness” involves his idealism and optimism for the world, making him a dreamer of sorts. Yet, although the foreground of Fitzgerald’s novel is packed with the sophisticated lives of the rich and the vibrant colors of the Jazz Age, the background consists of the Meyer Wolfsheims, the Rosy Rosenthals, the Al Capones, and others in the vicious hunt for money and the easy life. Both worlds share the universal desire for the right “business gonnegtion,” and where the two worlds meet at the borders, these “gonnegtions” are continually negotiated and followed (James E. Miller). Gatsby was a character meant to fall at the hands of the man meant to be a reality check to the disillusions of the era.

    Read More

  • Gatsby's Mysterious Nature in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    The 1920’s was a time of prosperity, woman’s rights, and bootleggers. F. Scott Fitzgerald truly depicts the reality of this era with The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby, an enormously wealthy man, is famous for his extravagant parties and striking residence. However, this is all that is known about Gatsby. Even his closest friends continue to wonder what kind of man Gatsby actually is. The mysteriousness of Gatsby is demonstrated by conceivable gossip, his random departures, and the missing parts of his past.

    Read More

  • Materialism And Superficiality In The Great Gatsby

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows that a materialistic mindset will corrupt the chance at true love. Gatsby tried to get Daisy to love him again by showing off his money and failed because he didn’t put his heart and self into their relationship. Myrtle mistakenly married a man whom she thought was wealthy and turned out he was poor. She quickly attempted to evade their marriage, but then had an affair with Tom Buchanan, a well known rich man. Fitzgerald demonstrates how none of these relationships worked out because of the materialistic ways of these characters. Finally, this theme is explored because it proves how true love isn’t real with fake values. True love should be two people who love each other unconditionally and is not based on money-oriented things.

    Read More

  • Free Essays - The Great Gatsby

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    As Matthew J. Bruccoli noted: “An essential aspect of the American-ness and the historicity of The Great Gatsby is that it is about money. The Land of Opportunity promised the chance for financial success.” (p. xi) The Great Gatsby is indeed about money, but it also explores its aftermath of greed. Fitzgerald detailed the corruption, deceit and illegality of life that soon pursued “the dream”. However, Fitzgerald entitles the reader to the freedom to decide whether or not the dream was ever free of corruption.

    Read More

  • Social and Moral Values in Relation to the Downfall of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    ‘The Great Gatsby’ is social satire commentary of America which reveals its collapse from a nation of infinite hope and opportunity to a place of moral destitution and corruption during the Jazz Age. It concentrates on people of a certain class, time and place, the individual attitudes of those people and their inner desires which cause conflict to the conventional values, defined by the society they live in. Gatsby is unwilling to combine his desires with the moral values of society and instead made his money in underhanded schemes, illegal activities, and by hurting many people to achieve the illusion of his perfect dream.

    Read More

  • Criticism of Capitalism in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

    1507 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lewis, Roger.  "Money, Love, and Aspiration in The Great Gatsby."  New   Essays on The Great Gatsby.  Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.  41-57.

    Read More

More about Illusions In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Open Document