Obsessive Love In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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True love is hard to understand, it is filled with various types of emotions that can potentially impact one's overall perception of love. It is difficult to fully pinpoint what love truly is, but finding out what isn't love is even harder. In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author introduces the concept of obsessive love through Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is a wealthy man trying to take back his past lover who is now married, through not only his money but through his controlling nature. Gatsby's relationship with Daisy is not genuine, but rather a relationship that was created for the sake of reliving the past and satisfying Gatsby’s own desires. Long before Gatsby and Daisy had reunited, he had always been …show more content…

During Daisy’s first visit to Gatsby's home, he starts by showing her everything she could've had, he even goes as far as showing her a collection of photos he had kept of her during the past years. Fitzgerald writes, ‘“Look at this,” said Gatsby. “Here’s a lot of clippings— about you.’” Gatsby kept these photos not out of love, but out of obsession. Simply keeping these pictures of a now married woman shows the fact that Gatsby is still not over the past, he still believed that he had truly loved her when in fact he is in love with the idea of being with her. Gatsby states, ‘“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,”....’” All Gatsby wants to do is recreate the past, he believes that with his efforts he can change the present so that his relationship with Daisy can be just as it was before. Gatsby’s true intention towards Daisy was never to love her, but to simply fulfill his fantasies about