The Great Gatsby Obsessive Analysis

‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald presents Gatsby as a charming, well-mannered and mysterious. The narrator reveals his most unrealistic of his dreams, to recapture the past by luring Daisy. Some of Gatsby’s traits do not depict him as “admirable” and “pure” but instead as ‘obsessive’ and ‘dangerous’. In order to acknowledge Gatsby’s ‘obsessive’ and ‘dangerous’ side. It is important to understand how Gatsby’s dreams interact with reality and variety of symbolism used in the text.

Firstly, F. Scott Fitzgerald highlights some characteristics of Gatsby that suggest an obsessive character, due to his passionate love for Daisy extended to an abnormal degree. Gatsby was in love with a memory he wanted to recreate in the present, "It was

Some rumours surrounding Gatsby and his immense wealth had said, “Somebody told me that he killed a man once,” “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” This indicates that Gatsby has a dark past and shrouded in mystery. Stating Gatsby as “a bootlegger” is an actual fact - his “dangerous” side increased his determination to seek wealth to get noticed by Daisy. When Daisy discovered how rich Gatsby was, she was attracted to him. This is clear when Gatsby first shows her his huge mansion. In the scene which Gatsby shows her his expensive shirts, she responds by saying, "They 're such beautiful shirts it makes me sad because I have never seen such beautiful shirts.” Daisy is over excited about how rich Gatsby is and could no longer contain herself. “The beautiful shirts” represented wealth and when Daisy sobs into the shirt, it is displaying her interest in materialism. Gatsby knows Wolfsheim, this in fact links him with the underworld business. Gatsby tells Nick that Wolfsheim is his ‘friend’ and a ‘gambler’ so we know he’s aware of his habits and lifestyle but is still close to him. Gatsby’s acceptance indicate that perhaps he lives in a similar lifestyle as he seems so casual about it and has some connection to bootlegging, showing his extreme wealth is probably not honestly