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The Great Gatsby Obsession

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The Great Gatsby: In Love or Obsessed? “Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” - Ann Landers
The true definition of love is an intense feeling of deep affection, but the meaning of obsession is an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind. Throughout the book, Gatsby's feelings towards Daisy were not love, but an obsession. There are a few reasons to consider that support this topic, for instance, Gatsby's craving to achieve wealth just to win Daisy over, Daisy being married, which still didn't stop Gatsby from trying …show more content…

Gatsby spent a long time trying to become rich and did things you would not expect a normal person to attempt. For example, since Gatsby was in the illegal business of bootlegging, he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish what he wanted, “I found out what your 'drug-stores' were.” He turned to us and spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here( where is here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong" (Fitzgerald 284). To go through all of that to become wealthy makes you ponder whether this was for “love” or the fact that he had an obsession with becoming successful. An exemplification of Gatsby’s obsession with being successful would be when his father “fills Nick in on Gatsby’s early life, showing him a book in which a young Gatsby had written a schedule for self-improvement” (sparknotes). “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind?” (Fitzgerald 182). Jay Gatsby’s preferable outcome through all of this was to achieve the goals he set out to attempt and not let anything get in his

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Gatsby believes that money can buy him whatever his heart desires. Gatsby’s misunderstanding of the way money functions in the society he lives in results in the failure of his attempt to gain both status and the

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In a book about a tragic love story, one would not expect to find a deeper meaning behind the dangers of jealousy or peril of lust. However, in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is a deeper meaning beyond jealousy and love. In The Great Gatsby, the author uses an empathetic storyline as a symbol to unwittingly give a complex depiction of the nuisance that people create that not only destroy our world but our society and gives warning to what will occur if we continue the path of destruction. With this intention, the brilliant opinionated writer, expressed his opinion through symbols such as the characters he uses, the setting the story takes place in, and the objects he uses in the book.

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Fitzgerald provides plenty of scenes in The Great Gatsby supporting the ideas whether Gatsby’s love was affectionate, obsession, or objectification. Fitzgerald shows that throughout the story, Gatsby slowly becomes more obsessed with Daisy as he draws closer and closer to be with her. By the end of the book, Gatsby becomes obsessed with Daisy. He only thinks about her and analyze everything in her life. Even in the beginning when the reader finally meets Gatsby, his obsession shows.

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Nick describes Gatsby “a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father 's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 98). He compares Gatsby and Jesus Christ to show how he created his own identity. After he reinvented himself as a rich man, Gatsby had to maintain his image, so he went to the extremes to make as much money as he could. These extreme ways of making money worked very well for him, but the

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Gatsby thinks of himself as a dream chaser, a person who is working hard through his life to get his beautiful memory back to him. Money is just a tool to bring his beloved girl back. People believed that his money all came from his rich family as Gatsby wants them to, which means that he was born rich. However, Gatsby actually earned the money on his own by taking high risks selling illegal alcohol. Since he knew that Daisy married a rich man, he decided never to live without money.

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He had the opportunity of creating a big life for himself on his own, but he never took it. This is similar to Sean Parker in the Social Network because he had went to Harvard, but also did not finish. (Find example in movie scene). This shows that neither of the characters valued education, and were somehow brought up and ended up making a lot of money. Their american dream came to them at the time, and didn’t have to work much for until they realized it wasn’t enough and had to try for what they really wanted, which for Gatsby was to have Daisy, and for Parker to have a big website and to be known along with

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Love, a deep affection, is only complete when felt by two unique individuals. In this story Gatsby has become blinded by his affection for Daisy he does not stop to consider anything else but being with her. He has this illusion and fantasy he has longed for since a little boy in his dream. While he has obtained everything else, the fame, glory, and wealth he lacks one thing, a lover. He has his life all crafted out and Daisy was his missing piece.

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In “The Great Gatsby”, Gatsby himself has set his focus on being viewed as this wealth man who did in fact come from wealth (even when he did not). He consistently portrays this man to hide the past and create an image for himself. He also pursues his dreams of winning over the heart of Daisy to create happiness. He did everything in his power to get her to notice him: moved to live near her, threw roaring parties in hope that she would eventually show up,

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Gatsby was a man who came up from essentially nothing by gaining his money through bootlegging and other illegal acts in order to gain a reputation in society. Gatsby’s constant desire to accomplish more in his life demonstrates the corruption of the American Dream. It is evident that Gatsby has had a thirst for the American dream since a young age, this is shown when Gatsby’s father says: “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind?

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In the book The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald portrays and image of love versus infatuation. The relationships between the characters shows the struggle of an emotional connection in a world driven by societal pressures and money. Gatsby’s and Daisy’s relationship with each other is intertwined with each other’s love and lust, and is complicated with their other relationships, such as Daisy’s and Tom’s marriage. Gatsby is the “fool” in love throughout this whole endeavor and his week with Daisy, because of his constant search for love to fill the void in his life that no amount of success can. Gatsby’s complete infatuation with Daisy started out with them meeting five years back, and surfaced into a love affair.

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Major themes that were constant throughout Scott’s writings were those of “wealth, youth, and beauty”. Fitzgerald’s writing of the Great Gatsby focused on binging of various items or ideas. In every activity that the character Gatsby took a part in, he binged. He drank excessively, only the most superb drinks of course, or he served large amounts to large quantities of people. Gatsby, following his creator’s perspective of romanticism, was all about finding his love.

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Gatsby falls in love with Daisy the first minute he meets her and never stops loving her even though she has obviously moved on. Gatsby does everything he can to be closer to her like buying “that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (78). Gatsby knows that if he can get the girl of his dreams he will not feel lonely anymore. " He talked a lot about the past… he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was” (87).

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Jay 's Obsession in The Great Gatsby There is a fine line between love and lust. If love is only a will to possess, it is not love. To love someone is to hold them dear to one 's heart. In The Great Gatsby, the characters, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are said to be in love, but in reality, this seems to be a misconception.

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While on the surface, Gatsby does have a ‘rags-to-riches’ story, it is not a virtuous one; he amasses his wealth through illegal channels by working with Meyer Wolfsheim, and never fulfills his dream, Daisy. Also, He changes his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby when he first encounters Dan Cody. Because Gatsby has to take on an entirely different persona to achieve success, disguising his poor upbringing and suggesting that James Gatz could never achieve the American dream. Gatsby first attempts to earn his financial success by performing menial labor for Cody, but when Cody’s ex-wife swindles Gatsby out of his inheritance, he turns to illegal means of getting rich. Not only does Gatsby illegally gain his wealth my selling grain liquor over the counter, but he also does so under the direction of Meyer Wolfsheim, breaking two essential qualities of the self-made man, virtue, and independence.

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