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Examples Of Doubleity In The Great Gatsby

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The Double Lives of Daisy and Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

There are many sides to a person. People are complicated creatures, and not one of us in this world ever completely tells the truth. There are some people, however, who take it farther. Whether by accident or on purpose, sometimes the lies get so big, so complicated, so intricately woven that it turns a person into someone completely different. Suddenly, there is more than one reflection to a person. Like mirrors bouncing off of each other, these reflections see deeper into a person than their single, one-dimensional reflection.
In the Great Gatsby, the characters are all inherent liars. They live not only double, but sometimes multiple lives. Specifically, Daisy and Gatsby are the biggest …show more content…

He changed his name and made it his goal to literally become someone else. Before he was Jay Gatsby, he was James Gatz, son of two unsuccessful farmers (Fitzgerald, 76). James Gatz, however, was not someone that he wanted to be. Gatsby dreamed of being wealthy. In fact, he valued wealth so much that he changed from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby and build an entirely new persona so that he would leave no traces of his old, poor life behind . As Nick said, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself’ (Fitzgerald, …show more content…

The truth is, she may have loved Tom at one point but she never loved him enough and never for long enough. In fact, on her wedding day, she had second thoughts. Her friend, Jordan, found her drunk in her bed and screaming about changing her mind about marrying Tom (Fitzgerald, 59-60).
Other than not loving Tom as much as she said she did, she was also in love with Gatsby. Gatsby was a large part of Daisy’s double life, caused in part by both of them hiding their love from Tom. Not only that, but she also hit on Nick a few times. One example is when Tom walked out of the room, and she quickly kissed Gatsby. A few minutes before, she had also offered to kiss Nick (Fitzgerald, 89). This is more evidence of her being unloyal, although on the outside she seems to be a loyal girl. Thus, two sides of the same person.
Throughout The Great Gatsby, many rumors about Gatsby fly around. No one next to Nick, and eventually Daisy, knows much about him. This allows him to essentially be whatever people think he is.There are rumors that he killed someone (Fitzgerald, 35) and rumors that he’s a bootlegger (Fitzgerald, 48). None of these rumors can be proven, but none can be disproven either, leaving Gatsby able to steer people’s perception of him any which way he chooses. This leaves him wide open to create multiple versions of

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His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of

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“In the world people try to hide things from each other but one way or another they find out what they are hiding. ”(Kibin.com) F.Scott Fitzgerald had a hard time naming his novel “The Great Gatsby”. Truly a story about love, lies and deceit. The name is misfitting. Therefore, the title should have been “Love Lies”.

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In ‘The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald conveys the message that everyone has secrets and the ability to be dishonest, so a person can only really trust themselves. The first, and perhaps the example that stands out the most this, is Jay Gatsby’s alter ego: James Gatz. Gatz came from a poor family, and wanted to create a new identity to represent himself with. So, main character Nick Carraway says that Gatz “invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old would be likely to invent…” (Fitzgerald 98).

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This given piece of information makes it clear that Jay Gatsby has created a series of lies in order for him to be someone he is truly not. Which places Gatsby in a network of lies, as everyone is in a constant question about who he really is. It gets to the point where people start to rumour and create lies about Gatsby themselves for example, “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille skeptically; “it’s more that he was a German spy during the war. Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once... It’s more that he was a German spy during the war..

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Fitzgerald in the novel, uses careless individuals who would destroy everything and everyone and yet still manage to retreat back to their money. Daisy Buchanan, the ‘golden girl’ is rather dishonest and deceitful throughout the novel. As she starts having her affair with Gatsby, she creates unrealistic expectations in Gatsby head about their future together. As Gatsby is having drinks at the Buchanan’s, Tom leaves the room and Daisy kisses Gatsby and declares, ‘I don’t care!’ At this point, the audience realizes that Daisy is and always was in love with Gatsby and that she was prepared to leave Tom.

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After Gatsby’s rise to fame and fortune, many of his peers are uncertain on Gatsby’s true past. While attending one of his extravagant parties, Nick learns of various rumors regarding his past: “‘Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once’ [...] ‘it’s more that he was a German spy during the war’“(Fitzgerald 42). The people at Gatsby’s parties know little of his origins, which causes many people to envision Gatsby’s journey to luxury in various ways. There are some people who believe that Gatsby murdered a man, whereas others think he was a German spy.

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Jay Gatsby, who was once James Gats, is a character created by James Gats in order to please Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is intrigued by wealthy men, and Gatsby was not one of them. Fitzgerald attempts to exhibit how

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“James Gatz — that was really, or at least legally, his name… The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God.... So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” ( 99) Gatsby was just a ideal, a dream that was conceived from James Gatz , a poor boy. He changed everything, lied about his past and truly believed that he was Jay Gatsby.

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During Gatsby's party when no one knows who Gatsby is, Nick and the members of the groups discuss the many things that they have heard about Gatsby. To their surprise many of them don't match up, such as they heard he was, “‘a german spy during the war’” ( Fitzgerald22) or that “‘ he told me he once was an oxford man, I don't think he went ‘“(25) , and they think “‘he killed a man’”(23). Gatsby telling each of them different stories like how he was an Oxford man and portraying himself falsely leads many of the party members to doubting him as they hear different and conflicting stories mixed with other rumors . By telling conflicting stories that don't match up Gatsby makes them trust him less and distance themselves from him even though the stories were designed to make him look better.

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In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby lives a life of lies and creates an entire fake persona in order to live up to the standards that Daisy, the love of his life, has set for him. James Gatz, a poor farm boy, transforms himself into something he is not, Jay Gatsby, a rich, powerful man, and will do anything to get there. Blinded by his love for Daisy, Jay Gatsby deceives everyone to believe he is a good man who inherited his wealth. In actuality, Gatsby’s entire character is a lie, proving Gatsby cannot come to terms with his past, allowing Fitzgerald to reveal the immorality connected to achieving dreams. Jay Gatsby creates an entirely false image of himself and lets others believe that he is someone else, to impress the girl he loves.

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In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald creates a mysterious character that catches the attention of all his readers. The bootlegger? The WW1 hero? Second cousin to the devil? Jay Gatsby.

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It is true that Daisy had loved Gatsby once, but it was all in the past. After Gatsby left to go to war, Daisy fell in love with Tom Buchanan. The reasons why Daisy married Tom was part of her love for him and the other part is because she loves the social position she is in when she is with Tom. Gatsby failed not because he was killed, but because Daisy’s love for Tom can not be changed with material things. All of the main characters have ideas for the perfect life and none were able to achieve them.

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The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island sprang from his platonic conception of himself ” (98). The implication that Gatsby already had the name picked out shows his dissatisfaction for the simple life that he lived and his desire to become someone else, someone who could pull off the guise of a gentleman who was born of old money. Nick stating that the new name was because of Gatsby’s “platonic conception of himself” indicates that Gatsby believed that he understood his values enough to know that throughout his life, he will try to aim for that goal of becoming a wealthy man who has a sphere of influence, basically, the American dream. These conceptions of Gatsby and his ideals about wealth are tools that the author uses to demonstrate the reasons that

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