ipl-logo

Examples Of Hollowness In The Great Gatsby

524 Words3 Pages

Hollowness in The Great Gatsby

Throughout the novel, you get the sense that the characters with the most money, are the least happy. Even though they appear to have everything one desires, they still want what they cannot have.Whether it be longing for the love of someone they cannot have, or being unfaithful and without morals, hollowness is portrayed in many different ways throughout the book.

In this novel, Jay Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who throws the most expensive, extravagant parties. Many people believe they know how Gatsby came to be, but the truth is his that his motivation for making so much money was solely to win over Daisy, the love of his life who is married to another man. Despite Gatsby's seemingly content attitude, he still reveals his unhappiness in life when thinking about Daisy. An example is when Nick describes Gatsby talking about the past, saying, “He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself …show more content…

She has always been wealthy, and always aspired to be wealthy. She is used to living in luxury, and is dependent on Tom to provide for her. When describing Daisy's voice, Gatsby says, “Her mouth is full of money” (Fitzgerald 120), meaning even her voice sounds like the stereotypical wealthy person’s. Daisy also reveals her hollowness as a person when she says “I hope she’ll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 17). In this quote, Daisy demonstrates the hollowness of the upper class by hoping her daughter will be a fool instead of a proper young lady. She believes the upper class does not value intelligent woman, so she believes her daughter will have a better life if she acts how the social standard wants her to

Show More
Related
957 Words | 4 Pages

After realizing he lost her love when he came back from war, he devoted his whole life to winning her back, and reviving the relationship and feelings they used to have for each other. For example he, committed himself to the sense of obtaining and having money, which used to be his real dream, before he met Daisy. The problem was Gatsby wanted a lot of money fast, so instead of being a true honest gentleman, Gatsby received his money through selling liquor illegally, and teaming up with the con, “Meyer Wolfshiem”. Gatsby's intense desire also drove him to acquire a house presently near Daisy and Tom’s home, a place where Gatsby can gaze and praise from. Then Gatsby starts to throw very popular parties in hopes that Daisy may notice and come to one, but she never does.

Read More
280 Words | 2 Pages

Manuel Valle In this novel Jay Gatsby is deeply in love with a woman named Daisy but she doesn’t love him back like he expects. Then Jay Gatsby name use to be James Gatz before he met a fellow that changed his life around and could help daisy fall in love with him. In Gatsby’s perspective he thought if he was richer that he could win daisy over. In the book it quotes,” Although gatsby professed to love daisy, there is a sense that he was not in love with her as much as he was in love with the idea of her”.

Read More
1321 Words | 6 Pages

Eldrich David Ms. Tomatis English III - F March 27, 2023 The Insatiable Materialistic Void F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a novel that follows the life of Nick Carraway as he lives in West Egg, a person whose life is surrounded by a plethora of wealth, yet an ever-growing void is created through the emptiness of an abundance of wealth. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald diminishes the value of material wealth to depict the pursuit of a relationship as a desperate attempt to fill the void brought by materialism. Ultimately, Fitzgerald uses the shortcomings of relationships to fill the void of wealth to suggest that excessive materialism is a hindrance to relationships that’s fatal.

Read More
936 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby had spent so much time and effort pursuing this unrealistic view of Daisy that it became impossible for her to live up to these expectations. He never made a real effort to find out who she actually is, or even simply respect that she had created a life apart from him. It’s unsurprising that he is disappointed by reality; he has been living in an elaborate dream, deluding himself to believe that his plan to win her over will work just because he wants it to, and ignoring the real factors that would break this illusion until it is broken for him. Gatsby is aware of the factors playing against him when it comes to his dream of being with Daisy, such as her marriage and commitment to her family, but he creates a mental version of events that serve him when he cannot accept this reality. Subsequently, he suffers from realizing that his imagined perfect version of Daisy and their perfect life together is not real or reasonable.

Read More
993 Words | 4 Pages

After the suffering of World War I in the 1920s, many of the upper class Americans focused on filling their lives with endless joy and concentrating their energies on their own pleasure and comfort to forget about wartime memories. The 1920s era was were money had become the foundation of society due to the American dream, where everyone left behind their horrible past and centralized on becoming wealthy and being the most superlative. As a result, in The Great Gatsby through many rhetorical devices, Fitzgerald uses Nick Carraway as his persona in order to portray that money became too powerful and people became extremely selfish and greedy in the 1920s. For instance, through diction, Carraway adequately describes his disgust of the East in

Read More
2016 Words | 9 Pages

Fitzgerald uses a flashback to reward readers with Gatsby’s and Daisy’s long-anticipated history, finally explaining why Gatsby is so dead-set on winning Daisy back, and why he feels betrayed by time. Nick reveals that the name Jay Gatsby is really a pseudonym for James Gatz. Under the assumed name, Gatsby believes he can achieve success to a level worthy of attaining Daisy, rather than be the “penniless young man without a past” (Fitzgerald 149). However, in his pursuit of a past, Gatsby found himself resenting it because after making a name for himself in the war effort, he was sent to Oxford rather than back home. All-the-while, Daisy, back home, engulfs herself in an “artificial world” of parties, champagne, flowers, and orchestras that “summed up the sadness and suggestiveness of life” (Fitzgerald 151).

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine, all of a sudden, your past lover pops into your life again, wanting you to forget about your spouse and child and start a new life with them. In the famous American novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby constructs an elaborate plan to have Daisy Buchanan meet him after five years had past, as if it happened to be coincidence. Gatsby gets in touch with people who are related to Daisy to join in his plot to get Daisy to meet Gatsby without Daisy’s husband, Tom, knowing. During the five years, Gatsby transforms himself from a penniless, poverty-stricken man into a filthy rich, wealthy gentleman in order to have countless parties to hopefully get Daisy to come and reconnect with him. Fitzgerald reveals Gatsby’s feelings

Read More
1374 Words | 6 Pages

Gatsby has spent his whole life trying to prove to Daisy and everyone around him that he is worthy of her. The only way to be on the same social level as her is to turn himself into new money. Since this is not possible, he has to try to convince to others that he truly is old money. To do this, he becomes rich, and lies about his past, but the only way for him to complete this idea is if he is with Daisy. She is the final piece in his American dream.

Read More
555 Words | 3 Pages

“Lack of Integrity” In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald tells in his story how the upper class lack of integrity. The upper class in Great Gatsby just don’t care about what goes on in life other than what they think is important. The upper class think of themselves higher than the other classes because of their social status and if they have old or new money. The upper class lack carelessness, selfishness, and dishonesty.

Read More
1261 Words | 6 Pages

The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic 20th century story -that period was also known as the “roaring twenties”- which critiques the vision of the American Dream people in general have. At that time, the idea of a free market, and industrial revolution provided the opportunity for many to seize the market and people were starting to see that they could become rich without having any type of restriction. New York city was the centre of this wealth-creating society. After the war, this movement generated new opportunities and ambitions for people wanting to start a wealthy upper class life. That period of time was all about alcohol, partying, gambling, fashion, and money.

Read More
995 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values. One of the major themes explored in this novel is the Hollowness of the Upper Class. The entire book revolves around money including power and little love. Coincidentally the three main characters of the novel belong to the upper class and throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how this characters have become corrupted and have lost their morality due to excess money and success and this has led them to change their perspective towards other people and they have been portrayed as short-sighted to what is important in life. First of all, we have the main character of this novel, Gatsby who won’t stop at nothing to become rich overnight in illegal dealings with mobsters such as Wolfsheim in order to conquer Daisy’s heart.”

Read More
724 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the book Gatsby uses his actions and events that happened in the past to either bring it back or move on from it. His love for Daisy started in the past, and it is so strong that he wants to bring back what they had and not leave it. Nick takes us through his story as he learns more about this character who, for everyone else in the book, is a mystery and no one really knows where he came from and what his past really was. The way he started off getting his money doing illegal actions was not exactly the right thing. When Daisy leaves Gatsby for Tom he is devastated because Daisy was everything to him and he wanted to recreate what they had in the past.

Read More
793 Words | 4 Pages

This hinders Gatsby from moving on and focusing on his own life and happiness. In the beginning to gain Daisy's affections, Gatsby accumulates extortionate wealth and displays extravagant gestures, such as organizing luxurious parties every Friday and showing her his grandiose mansion after the Tea Party with Nick. To Gatsby the memories of the past with Daisy are everything that he wants. Therefore winning Daisy back becomes his primary goal in life. When Nick tells Gatsby, “You cannot repeat the past,” Gatsby replies incredulously,“Why of course you can.”

Read More
1873 Words | 8 Pages

The characters in the novel pretend that they have their lives all figured out, but through their successes their downfalls and emptiness can be seen, to prove that money cannot buy happiness. Jay Gatsby is the newest and upcoming star in New York during the 1920’s. Through his business and inheritance he is one of the richest men of his time. One may think that his abundance of wealth would lead him to be eternally happy, but he is the opposite. Gatsby longs for his love of Daisy, which is his personal American Dream.

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

Set in the lavish era of the 1920’s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the wealthy, yet sinful life of Jay Gatsby. When describing his character, Fitzgerald touches upon the three deadly sins: greed, envy and gluttony. James Gatz, having grown up in a small town to farmers, wished to make more of himself. Disowning his parents at a young age, he went off in search for money, and a new identity. “And when the TUOLOMEE left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left too” (Fitzgerald 107).

Read More

More about Examples Of Hollowness In The Great Gatsby

Related Topics

Open Document