Jason Hand
Mrs. Tara Tollett
American Literature and Composition Honors
25 April 2023
The Tragedy that is Jay Gatsby
Jay Gatsby is a fantastic character who sports layers of depth and detail, and his development throughout the book adds an emotional impact to his actions. While the character himself is amazingly written, his life is quite the opposite. Pain and misfortune plague him throughout the entire book which is why Gatsby is incredibly tragic. From the day he turns seventeen to the moment he takes his last breath, his goals end up failing and nothing ever truly works out for him. His best friend's lover cheats him out of his inheritance, the woman he spent his life trying to win over abandons him, and an upset widower murders him. All
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He distinguishes characters into two types, egoists which are characters that “depend on personality and making themselves appear different via appearance and grooming” (Lehan “Inventing…” 58) and personages which “see self as a process and sense of what one can become” (Lehan “Inventing…” 58). Gatsby is a personage as the character is not just James Gatz pretending to be someone he is not, but instead a young boy reinventing himself and actually becoming this new person. Gatsby is “just the sort of Jay Gatsby a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent” (Lehan “Son…” 34), and this is the case because James Gatz had just met Mr. Dan Cody and is captivated by his charm. This young, impressionable mind finds the perfect person to shape himself into. The reasoning behind Gatz’s interest in Cody is linked to the young boy's interest in the American frontier and the fact that Dan Cody is “a product… for every metal rush since seventy five” (Lehan “His Father’s…” 42-43). The American frontier is long over by the time Gatz is seventeen, but Dan Cody is this shining figure of the frontier that Gatz wants to experience. Modeling himself after Cody is like being a frontiersman himself and spending time with him allows him to experience the life he dreams