Effects Of Love In The Great Gatsby

“Some mistakes get made. That’s alright. That’s okay. You can think that you’re in love, when you’re really just engaged” (Ashe, Moral of the Story: 2:35). Love can have many peaks and valleys. Peaks so high and innocent that it feels that nothing could come between a couple but, valleys so low the couple wonders why they are still there. Love can also manifest in a form of courage. Love like this makes a person travel across the world or do things outside of their comfort zone just to be with someone. Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the different effects of love on a person through his characters, Jay Gatsby & Daisy Buchanan, Tom & Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle & George Wilson, showing us that while love is

Once the climber reaches the top, he/she is then able to see the smooth descent or deathly steep fall. The climber might overlook this and continue down the mountain only to run into a giant wall or decide to go back the way they came but realize that they dropped their safety rope. This scenario figuratively used is the perfect example of the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby. The beginning of Daisy & Gatsby’s relationship starts with a smooth climb, and with very few boulders to jump over, they reach the top pretty quickly. However just as quickly as they reached the top, they fell off their first cliff when Gatsby went away to war. Gatsby’s departure placed their relationship on hold. Daisy knew this but she waited, she waited until the pressures of the world got to her and she had to move on with her life. By moving on, Daisy starts trying to find a different path down the mountain but instead finds another mountain and starts climbing that one. Only she doesn’t know that she’s going in a circle around the mountain until Gatsby reappears in her life and she’s back at the base of the cliff where she fell a while ago. Upon Gatsby’s return, he pursues her strongly but realizes he doesn’t truly know her anymore just what he expected her to be. “He knew that Daisy was extraordinary,

When Gatsby left for war, Daisy held off her life for him but became extremely lonely and confused. “She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside…”(Fitzgerald 151). Daisy, coming from a rich background, has an image to upkeep. The “pressure” could be from her image crumbling or maybe she realized that Gatsby didn’t have much to offer. He wasn’t rich, he didn’t have a rich family, he was unavailable and Daisy couldn’t wait forever. So she moves on. “Suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men…And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately and the decision must be made by some force of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality that was close at hand. That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan”(Fitzgerald 151). Tom, who is rich, built, handsome, and most importantly, available, has a lot to provide to Daisy and her image. Because of this, Daisy’s problem with feeling outside pressures and feeling like she has to make a choice has a solution. The solution, however, won’t and doesn’t last forever though, because while “[she] can’t say [she] never loved Tom…It wouldn’t be true” (Fitzgerald 133), she does have someone else she