Jay Gatsby Impact

The Great Gatsby is an action-filled novel that acts as a time capsule to the 1920' s. This novel lacks any personality within any of its intriguing characters. Every character plays a vital role in the development of the story's complex plot. It would be unfair to say that one character has more importance to the plot than another character. It is fair to say that one single character can affect the way the entire novel is perceived as a whole, while other characters cannot. The character that has the largest impact on "The Great Gatsby" is the ever-so-glorious Mr. James Gatz, otherwise known as Jay Gatsby. This is the man who created a fun wave that the entirety of West Egg is riding on. From an outsider perspective, Jay is a secretive billionaire

An obvious way that readers can see Gatsby defending his ego is through his name change. As a young boy, he was referred to by his peers as "James Gatz". As he got more wealth he preferred to be named "Jay Gatsby''. This was a way of separating his old self from his new self. This disconnect made him feel comfortable because people would not view him as the man that he was before the money. Even though Gatsby has a plethora of money, this didn't change the fact that he had always wished that he had come from generational money. If he had money since birth, like Tom, he would no longer feel the need to disconnect his early years from his late years. The overall theme of the novel can be seen as F. Scott Fitzgerald used Jay Gatsby to portray his opinion on the American dream. The idea of the American dream is the most ideal American life that is obtainable for a person. For Gatsby, his American dream was to be with Daisy and have lots of wealth. When The Great Gatsby was published by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925, many Americans debated on whether the American dream was obtainable or not. When Fitzgerald shows an almighty man like Gatsby not being able to achieve the American dream, this could be a subtle theme that the American dream isn't obtainable for anyone in society. Fitzgerald had his own beliefs on the American Dream, and what better way to portray this than through the main character Jay Gatsby? Fitzgerald also used Gatsby to symbolize the upcoming fall of the Roaring Twenties. The upcoming was before and the downfall was after the stock market. The