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Personality In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Creating Gatsby’s Personality

In the fiction novel, The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald leaves Gatsby’s personality up to the reader. The Great Gatsby involves the American Dream, Gatsby’s personality being very undefined helps the reader relate what Gatsby is doing to their own american dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald leaves the mystery of Gatsby’s personality up for interpretation by the reader. Gatsby being vaguely described helps people relate back to him. His description especially in the opening paragraphs is largely up to how the reader assumes. We do not get firm definitions of who Gatsby is, and what he likes and dislikes. The only thing that is ever brought up is people’s rumors and assumptions, the author illustrates this …show more content…

“Leaving the reader with only an image and different rumors about him, Gatsby becomes a very mysterious and concealed character in the beginning” (Collins College, 1). If he did kill someone, who? Why would he need to kill someone? Asking these questions can change the way you perceive Gatsby. This might make you think that he is a bad guy, or somesort of hero who saved someone else. Even when you first meet Gatsby there isn’t a firm definition because Nick is at the party, and when they finally meet all that is described about Gatsby is his smile. According to the text, “He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. 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” (Fitzgerald 28). When Nick asks about him, Jordan can only reply with very vague things about him. The smile might lead you to think more highly about him. When we start learning about Gatsby it makes things much more interesting. The little details that we get about him, and how we learn that he is actually a nice guy to Nick can make you think that he is a good person. The mystery is built up still when we learn more details about him because he finally comes clean about his past and tells us about how his name is not actually Jay

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In chapter six of the great gatsby a lot of the motives, characteristics and other important attributes of the characters were revealed in the chapter. At the beginning of chapter six the reader and Nick learn that everything about Gatsby was a lie; even his name. We learn that he didn’t inherit any money, lived on a farm in North Dakota, and his real name is James Gatz. Gatsby’s motives were to become extremely rich and win the love of Daisy. He does this by lying to everyone to convince them that he is old money, putting him higher up the social ladder to get Daisy to notice him.

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"It's more that he was a German spy during the war." "You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking at him. I bet he killed a man. ”(page 48). This quotes show the rumours that surround Gatsby’s gain of wealth and power; people think he killed a man but

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Thus, two sides of the same person. Throughout The Great Gatsby, many rumors about Gatsby fly around. No one next to Nick, and eventually Daisy, knows much about him. This allows him to essentially be whatever people think he is.

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In contrast to other classic novels, The Great Gatsby does not feature central characters that are especially unique. Instead, they are stereotypes that serve to fulfill the purpose of the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The actions and attributes of these characters represent those of typical Americans from prominent social groups of the 1920s. For example, Tom and Daisy Buchanan represent the rich Americans who inherited their wealth from their blue blood families.

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The character trait of being mysterious seems to be the primary trait that the general public associates with Gatsby. At one of the many parties that Gatsby throws, Nick Carraway overheard someone saying, “ Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once” (Fitzgerald 44), and also “ I don’t think it’s so much that… it’s more that he was a German spy during the war” (44). The people who came to his parties didn’t know

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I am in no position to interject my personal judgement on Gatsby’s character, but I am able to provide some hindsight. His views of the world around him were

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Forget about Gatsby. At the beginning of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is having dinner with the Buchannans when he mentions Jay Gatsby, his neighbor. Nick explains Gatsby as leisurely and profound and that he gets the feeling that Gatsby wants to be alone. Gatsby throws parties every weekend, but no one knows who Gatsby is; some say he killed a man, some think that he is a German spy, and some say that he was just in the American army. All of this tells me that Gatsby is a quiet man, because no one knows who he is.

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Nick sees the appeal that everyone else sees in this moment and feels a sense of comfort in Gatsby’s presence. Fitzgerald in this instance makes sure to use certain diction surrounded by being “understood” and “believed in” to make the reader feel the way Nick felt in seeing Gatsby. The device hyperbole is seen being used in Nick’s description when he mentions how Gatsby’s smile gives “eternal reassurance.” The author is attempting to make Gatsby into a character that is praised to the point that it foreshadows the eventual breakdown of who Gatsby really is and how he actually

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Which involves being a German spy, Killing someone, was always a rich man. These rumors elaborates on the mysteriousness of Gatsby, not many people know who he is and what he does. He also lies himself about his past. He first told Nick about his perfect life, nothing relates to his actual past, but later he tells Nick, “He told me this very much later… caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions.” But even this story he has told may not be fully truthful.

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Gatsby doesn’t really show what he really is to the public, and that makes him a different person from what the others think of

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