Examples Of Humanism In The Great Gatsby

Being human means making mistakes, having too much hope, and trusting the wrong people. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a man who grew up poor and eventually cons his way into becoming wealthy. Daisy Buchannan, on the other hand, has always been rich and only gets richer once she marries. Daisy and Gatsby shared young love but while Daisy moves on with her life, Gatsby never forgets her. He becomes obsessed with recreating their past, a vision so destructive it causes his own death. Jay Gatsby is not great because he suffers from being human, dragged down by his misplaced hope and self destructive qualities.

Gatsby puts his hope in the wrong spot and it develops into a consuming obsession, ending in his own downfall.

He truly believes he can recreate his past with Daisy, exactly the way he wants it to be. But in reality, their future would not be the same. By believing so fully in their past, Gatsby becomes obsessive. Before Gatsby dies, Nick speculates that Gatsby no longer cared if Daisy called him or not and“if that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald 161). If instead Gatsby put his hope into a better future, he would not have wasted his life longing for a dream. Realizing that his hopes will never come true, Gatsby loses the spark and warmth of life. When Daisy never calls and realization dawns on him, Gatsby is enveloped in the

When Nick and Gatsby first meet, Nick questions, “What part of the Middle West [are you from]?” I inquired casually. “San Francisco” (Fitzgerald 65). Gatsby has the tendency to be an explicit liar about simple things. He is caught lying when he tells Nick that he is from San Francisco, a city not in the Middle West, a basic question that does not require a lie. It is human nature to be dishonest- no matter who you are or perhaps who you are pretending to be. Being untruthful is a part of Gatsby’s persona, warping the way others see him. When Nick first meets Gatsby he observes that he was “an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd…[Nick] got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care” (Fitzgerald 48). Nick realizes that Gatsby is putting on a facade while speaking to him, he sees him for who he truly is, and notices that he is planning everything he says. The act of putting on an act is a very human behavior; covering what one does not want to be seen. Gatsby does not exceed these human expectations in this aspect and instead fulfills them, playing a part almost too perfectly that Nick picks up on it. The reason why he puts this persona on is all to reach his goals. As Gatsby and Nick gaze at Daisy’s child, “[Gatsby] kept looking at the child with surprise. [Nick