The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

The novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald examines the life of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s main dream in the book is to achieve the american dream in order to give the love of his life what he knows she is accustomed to. The woman he loves is Daisy and they met before he went off to war and they fell in love. After he left the army he did not have anything, he knew a rich business man who helped him gain his own riches. Eventually Daisy married a man named Tom Buchanan. The marriage of Daisy and Tom was not perfect but they loved each other. Finally Daisy and Gatsby returned to each other and they fell in love all over again. The Great Gatsby condemns his dream of being with Daisy more than it praises it by having people like Tom

Gatsby had the incessant feeling of needing to repeat his past which went against his new beginning. He thought once he had Daisy they could relive the early days of their relationship. Nick knows Daisy well and he warned Gatsby not to push her into anything; he did not want either of them to get hurt by each other. Nick said “I wouldn’t ask too much of her, you can’t repeat the past” to which Gatsby replied “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” Gatsby needed to be rich to provide Daisy with the same illusion he had when they first met. In the past, when they first met, Daisy thought he was rich and to achieve what they had had he needed her to still believe it. This is what drove him to work with Meyer Wolfshiem, a shady business man with questionable morals. Tom saw right past Gatsby’s facade and made sure Daisy did

The Great Gatsby features scenes where characters would try to stand in the way of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. One example of this takes place in the plaza hotel where Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom confront each other. Gatsby wanted to travel back in time to before Tom Buchanan entered into their lives; he wanted to go to where she only had ever loved him. Tom says to Daisy and Gatsby "I want to hear all about it" (referring to the affair) and Gatsby goes onto to tell him it's been "going on for five years and you didn't know".(143) Gatsby thought that Daisy had never loved Tom, and that Tom was just keeping her warm until he could return. Gatsby demanded that Daisy tell Tom she never loved him, but she could not. "Oh you want too much...I love you now- isn't that enough?"(141) The book comes full circle on the subject of repeating the past when Daisy tells him " I can't help what's past." (141). The “Past” is what Gatsby wants; when Daisy tells him that they can go back and “ I did love him once- but I loved you too.”(143) he would not accept it. “ The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby” (143) and he wanted to talk in private with her because he thought he could change her mind. Daisy would not lie to him, “even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom, It wouldn’t be true.” This is the point in the novel where Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship turned into an affair that would have