Jay Gatsby or James Gatz, as the readers learned his real name in chapter six, is a man of great delusions. Gatsby did not have the luxury of being born into a rich family, however, he desired that life and felt he was too good to be a meager farmer. Gatsby, plague by pride and delusions of grandeur, he went through life scraping to get by. He felt as if he was too good for anything that was not upper class, and sent his goal towards becoming the wealthy person he wanted to be. His obsessions in life drove him to make drastic decisions and his obsession with Daisy, once he realizes how impossible it is for him and Daisy to have the same life they did five years ago, will make Gatsby make drastic decisions just as he had done to become wealthy. …show more content…
Gatsby is supposed to be an ideal, and he is not the actual James Gatz. Jay Gatsby is a representation of how James Gatz believed rich people behaved, and it was to further himself away from his lineage. Gatz abandoned himself to become part of the elite and distance himself from anything from his beginnings in hopes of becoming wealthy. His persona becomes obvious when he speaks as it overly “elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” and at first it just seems like Gatsby is possibly just awkward, but it makes sense that he acts like this because he is mimicking the rich (Fitzgerald 48). His speech is one of the factors that makes it very obvious that Jay Gatsby is nothing but a character and has been put in place of James Gatz. This persona allows Gatsby to pass off as a rich man and he wants people to like him. Gatsby is faking parts of himself, so he could reach and keep the appearance of wealth, no matter how odd it actually is. Gatsby learned all this from a rich man named Dan Cody, who he stuck with after informing the man of an incoming storm. After Cody died his mistress took most of