Character Analysis of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the main character, Jay Gatsby, is a man who is wealthy and mysterious and who is trying to achieve the American dream. He is obsessed with and in love with his neighbor Daisy Buchanan. Jay Gatsby moves in across from Daisy Buchanan in a huge and fancy mansion. He hopes to lure Daisy in by having constant parties. He never wins her back because he never really had her to begin with. Gatsby’s behavior is driven by an idea of Daisy completely at odds with who the real Daisy is.

Gatsby came from a poor family. He grows up in poverty and reinvents himself as a wealthy man. Gatsby comes upon Dan Cody, a “drunken yachtsman” (Lukens 44) who dies and leaves Gatsby an enormous amount of money. The now wealthy Gatsby then enlists in the army and meets Miss Daisy Faye.

Gatsby was poor when he was growing up. He wanted to remake himself using power and wealth to erase the poverty of his past. Margaret Lukens in her article Gatsby as a Drowned Sailor states, that Jay Gatsby at seventeen years old was named Jay Gatz and he had to borrow a rowboat in order to help a man named Dan Cody (44). Gatsby's borrowing the boat illustrates he was poor before he became a wealthy man. In addition, Gatsby had to struggle in order to “stay above the element that “bore” him, a creature impatiently, forcing his own evolution” (Lukens 44). Gatsby hated the poverty of his youth, and wanted wealth and power.

Impressing Dan Cody with his charm, Gatsby is helped out of his rowboat, and in a week, owns the clothes of a yachtsman (Luken). Through owning the clothes of a yachtsman Gatsby becomes wealthy due to opportunities that were offered to him because he wore these clothes of a yachtsman and while wearing the clothe...

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... than a relationship.

Daisy runs over Myrtle and doesn’t even stop. She allows Gatsby to take the blame for Myrtles death. This is a clear example of how Daisy’s world just revolves around her. Horrible things happen and she has no care in the world, or as cliff notes say “she is void of conscience”. Therefore, she doesn’t love Gatsby as much as she loves Tom because Gatsby doesn’t have as much wealth as she and Tom do.

When Gatsby first meets Daisy, he is infatuated with who he thinks she is, but then, through being with her, he finds out she is not what he thought. The impression of who Daisy was which motivated Gatsby for many years is shattered by his interactions with the real Daisy. Daisy is very selfish and shallow, thinking of only what she has by being with Tom. She doesn’t see that Gatsby loves her, but he loves wealth and power even more than her.