To get this happiness Jay must reach into the past and relive an old dream and in order to do this he must have wealth and power. Jay Gatsby, the central figure of the story, is a character who longs for the past. He devotes most of his adult life trying to recapture it and, eventually dying in its pursuit. In the past, Gatsby had a love affair with the beautiful and seemingly innocent Daisy. Knowing he could not marry her because of the difference in their social status, he leaves her to accumulate his wealth so that he reaches her economic and social standards.
Gatsby had been working for so long to make Daisy his, that somewhere along the way his love turned to obsession. His Dream is not the pure thing it started out to be. His first step in fulfilling it was to become wealthy, which he did through corrupt means. He was filled with hope that once Daisy saw his wealth and how much he still loved her, that she would leave her husband Tom and come be with him. He even “bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 83).
The novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about the American Dream, and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goals. In the Great Gatsby the dream is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness. To get this happiness, Jay Gatsby must reach into the past and relive an old dream. In order to achieve his dream, he must have wealth and power. Jay Gatsby is one character that longs for the past.
The attempt to capture the American Dream is the central of this novel. This dream is different for different people, but in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness and to get this happiness, Jay must reach into the past and relive an old dream and in order to do this he must have wealth and power. This can be explained by how Gatsby came to get his fortune. By studying the process of how Gatsby tried to achieve his own so-called American Dream, we could have a better understanding of what American dream is all about, in those down-to-earth Americans' point of view. The characterization of Gatsby is a representative figure among Americans as he devoted his whole life to achieve his dream.
Despite Gatsby’s fancy house and glamorous parties, he is missing a crucial part of his American dream: Daisy. While Gatsby was fighting in the war, his one true love, Daisy, married Tom, who was wealthy, so Gatsby figured that in order to win Daisy back, he needed to have money so he could provide her everything she wanted. Nick explains, “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. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs” (Fitzgerald 91).
She only started showing renewed interest when he began throwing extravagant parties every night. While over at Gatsby’s, Daisy comments about... ... middle of paper ... ... will store up in his ghostly heart" (101). Gatsby expected perfection from Daisy, but was instead met with a shallow corrupt woman, who could never fulfill all of Gatsby’s dreams. Daisy was never meant to be Gatsby’s, she was only supposed to be the thing he tried to get, the false image of perfection. The real fulfillment of the American dream was Gatsby’s path towards perfection, not his eventual failure to reach the end.
Money was what kept both of them apart. Coming from a wealthy family, Daisy was brought up to understand that an affluent girl could not be with someone from an inferior social class. When Gatsby’s beloved Daisy went off to marry Tom Buchanan, he was determined to do anything in his power to win her back. Four years later, Gatsby came back looking for Daisy, after having developed an immense amount of wealth. He moved right across her house so that he could be close to her and threw massive parties hoping that she would potentially appear one night.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts a tragic love story between the main character, Jay Gatsby and his lover, Daisy Buchanan. Nick Carraway narrates about their love relationship tragically because only Gatsby shows his loves towards Daisy. Jay Gatsby is a young man who comes from poor family and he falls in love with Daisy, a wealthy, “the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (Fitzgerald 128). They have been separated for almost ten years as Gatsby goes off to war. While away from Daisy, he tries very hard to reach the American dream and be at the same social class with Daisy as there is no marriage between rich and poor people in the year back then.
"The American dream is the idea held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity." (Wikipedia) So basically the American Dream is to have money, and a family. Gatsby got his money, but what he really wanted was Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby spent his whole life striving for one thing. The American Dream, which for him is mainly dominated by Daisy.
We find out later that his dream was actually Daisy, who he met before the war and lost her to Tom because of his lack of social and monetary status. He resolved to win her back by making something of himself. He made his fortune by doing illegal acts but reaches his goal and goes after his dream of reuniting with