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The Great Gatsby Research Paper

1557 Words7 Pages

The roaring twenties present an environment where wealth, privilege, and social status are the illusion of a perfect life. This American dream was originally a symbol of hope for success and a better life, but is blurred into a goal of material wealth and status. With this glamorous lifestyle comes the devastating consequences of unhappiness, delusions, and harsh realities. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, characters such as Gatsby, Daisy, and Nick navigate between illusion and reality, each carrying different motives of the pursuit of happiness in relationships and achieving the American dream. Symbolizing the corrupt dream of the 1920’s, Jay Gatsby is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his fantasy of a perfect life. Similarly, …show more content…

His love of wealth and material possessions is not only a personal interest, but also one of Daisy’s interests. Revolving his life around her, Gatsby only “bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald, 78). He takes pride in showing off his expensive shirts, “throwing them one by one” (Fitzgerald, 92) In chapters five and six, readers sympathize for Gatsby, seeing that he is merely a love-struck human who is throwing his life away for a girl not worth his time. Nick Carraway, however, sees Daisy as who she truly is. Formerly the sweet girl who loved Gatsby in Louisville, Daisy will never desert her social class in the East Egg to be with Gatsby of West Egg. Gatsby takes off his rose-colored glasses and realizes the past cannot be repeated. “Only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible” (Fitzgerald, 134) He faces reality in chapter seven, when Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby and proves her real nature. Unfortunately for Gatsby, he is unable to create a better life for himself without Daisy before getting murdered a few days after his epiphany. Already coming from a wealthy family, Daisy Fay’s dream is to live an easy life filled with riches and glamour. She marries Tom Buchanan of Chicago, who is from an aristocratic family and promises her the luxurious lifestyle of her dreams. “By the …show more content…

“He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford,” or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him now. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him, after all.” (Fitzgerald, 65) His lies about being an Oxford man and his previous criminal activity makes Nick mistrustful of Gatsby. He sees the flaws in Gatsby’s motives and desires to repeat the past. After Gatsby dies, Nick moves to Minnesota. While he is attracted to the fast paced and fun lifestyle of New York, he finds this lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication, just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people. “That’s my Middle West...the streetlamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark... I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.” (Fitzgerald, 176). Nick returns to the Midwest because he is disillusioned with life in New York and realizes that the reality of the American Dream is a destructive force despite its positive

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East Vs. West Egg In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Nick travels back here after the war before he goes over to West Egg, and after Gatsby’s death he travels back west because “after Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me” (Fitzgerald 176). When he moved back to the Midwest, he saw Tom there he was upset at him because he was one of the main reasons Gatsby was dead. The father of Gatsby went East to see his son's funeral, and while there he showed Nick Gatsby’s notes to become successful. Not in the Midwest but in Kentucky is where Gatsby meets Daisy and they fall in love this is also where Gatsby gets the idea that Daisy is “High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (Parkinson 54) and how that makes him think of Daisy's life in an unrealistic light. Because of Gatsby’s view of the house, he starts to see money and wealth as “a source of power” (Parkinson 54) and a tool to be used to gain something or become

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F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a novel that explores the complex relationships between the wealthy elite of the Jazz Age. The story is set in the wealthy enclave of East Egg, where the excesses and moral decay of the time are on full display. Two of the most important characters in the novel are Gatsby and Nick, who form a bond that is based on mutual respect and a shared understanding of the world around them. In this essay, I will explore the relationship between Gatsby and Nick, and the significance of the East Egg setting in the story. Gatsby and Nick come from very different backgrounds, but they share a sense of disillusionment with the world around them.

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Nick is made the narrator of the story that he is to tell of Jay Gatsby and is the reliable one who tells us that he must “reserve all judgments”. Nick’s values are rather parallel to Gatsby’s values of loyalty and honesty. Throughout the story, Nick’s admiration of Gatsby grows as they become friends although he “disapproved him from beginning to end.” As we are told the story from Nick’s point of view, the reader is forced to accept his thoughts and observations of the whole society, but most of all Gatsby. Nick realises that Gatsby has invested his whole self into trying to achieve his dream and Nick is in admiration of his determination.

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While Nick and Jordan maintain a decent relationship throughout the majority of this novel, by the end of it, he realizes that Jordan is a willing accomplice to the destruction that is being caused by these relationships. While Jordan is certainly different from the women in this novel, a self made woman with no need for a man, she still thrives and takes advantage of this materialistic world that Nick doesn’t want to be a part of. Nick is initially drawn to Jordan’s beauty and confidence: “I hate careless people. That’s why I like you. ``(39), Nick says to Jordan at one of Gatsby's parties early on in the novel.

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