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Daisy's Dream In The Great Gatsby

1621 Words7 Pages

F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, explores the idea of the pursuit of dreams and the unattainable desire to recreate the past. People everywhere are motivated by similar dreams that give them meaning to the things they do. Gatsby builds his life around his dreams and they shape his identity while also holding him back from true greatness. He is obsessed with this dream and like many people, can only see that it won’t work out after he has already devoted so much to it. Jay Gatsby devotes his life to the pursuit of his dream of a perfect life with Daisy which ultimately leads to his downfall as struggles to face the reality of his tragic life until it is too late. From the first time they meet, Jay Gatsby is drawn to Daisy and quickly …show more content…

He becomes obsessed with recapturing their past relationship, leading him to building himself a new life centered around Daisy. Wanting Daisy to believe that he is “in the same strata as herself” Gatsby turns to a life of crime and deceit, illegally earning money and becoming the ostensible epitome of wealth and success (149). This new Gatsby buys a magnificent mansion in West Egg “so that Daisy would be just across the bay”, the green light on her dock an infinite reminder of his ever so close yet far away goal (78). Everyday, people flow in and out of his “road house”, constantly attending his extravagant parties that’s sole purpose are to catch Daisy’s eye and perhaps draw her back to him one day (64). After years of this intricate display that becomes his reality, Gatsby expresses a want for Nick to invite Daisy over for tea. He is tired of waiting and longs for Daisy to see his greatness and admire everything that he has built for her. This is when Nick realizes that all of Gatsby’s “purposeless splendor” was for a reason after all and actually reflects the extent of Gatsby’s tragic chase for a single dream …show more content…

When Gatsby first sees the green light on Daisy’s dock, he feels like his dream is “so close that he [can] hardly fail to grasp it” but he is unable to see that it “[is] already behind him” and impossible to reach (180). He lives a life of optimism “running faster and stretching his arms out further”, expending all his energy for a goal that only gets further away (180). Rather than sailing closer to the greatness of his goal, Gatsby is “borne back ceaselessly into the past,” drifting further and further away from his dream (180). Gatsby obsessively crafts an ideal image of a life with Daisy in his head, but the reality of the situation is much different. When Daisy comes over for tea Gatsby is a mess despite spending everyday preparing for her arrival. He is nervous to see Daisy and panics because when things don’t go exactly according to plan even down to the minute of her arrival. This tea marks a point where Gatsby finally sees the real Daisy again as opposed to the one he has imagined. Gatsby denies the juxtaposition of these two Daisies but Nick feels that it is inevitable that at some point Daisy will “tumble short of his dreams”, unable to live up to the “colossal vitality of his illusion” (95). He has built up his illusion of Daisy to an impossible standard, “adding to it all the time” and falling in love with the idea of Daisy

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