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Happiness In The Great Gatsby

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Throughout The Great Gatsby the relationship between money and perceived happiness is used as a cloak to shield themselves from exposing their true colors to society. When Nick first meets Gatsby in chapter 3 he sees his amazing life changing smile. “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.” (Fitzgerald, 48). But right as he is looking at his smile they are interrupted by one of Gatsby 's butler 's saying that Chicago is on the line. Nick at this point is realizing that there 's definitely some sort of mystery …show more content…

Through the book more and more is revealed what is behind that smile. The truth behind the smile is that Jay wants to leave every aspect of his past. This begun before Daisy at the age of 17 “James Gatz – that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career – when he saw Dan Cody 's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out of Tuolomee, and informed Cody that the wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour” (Fitzgerald, 98). This describes a key point in Gatsby 's life where he decides to part from his poor family and his poor lifestyle. When he meets Daisy he is still a poor man but doesn 't want that to be apart of his lifestyle and wants to offer Daisy so much more. When Jay goes to war Daisy wants to wait for him but slowly comes to the realization that she is waiting for a poor man who cannot offer her anything except for himself, this causes her to move on and mary Tom. Once Nick comes to learn this he comes to the conclusion that it is all for Daisy and for the sake of proving himself to her that he has so much more

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