Empty Lives:
The Absence of Love in F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

“Love is when the other person 's happiness is more important than your own” (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.). In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, many characters are lacking the ability to be unselfish and sacrifice their happiness for a loving relationship. Due to the economic growth in the 1920’s, many people valued money, wealth, status, and the superficial happiness that came with those things more than a stable and loving relationship. They were willing to sacrifice their love for someone with money and social class. Even if one of the characters in The Great Gatsby was supposedly attracted to someone, it was for their status in society rather than their personality, attitude, and moral values. Because of this, many characters do not experience the feeling of love in their lives. Fitzgerald illustrates this absence of love through the shallow philosophies of the upper-class and wealthy characters in the novel. He displays this through the characters of Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, and Daisy Buchanan.

Jay Gatsby does not have the feeling the of love in his life, even though he is desperate to be with Daisy. He is attracted to her wealth and status instead of the characteristics that truly matter in a relationship such as personality. He illustrates this in the way he tries to attract Daisy; he throws lavish parties and shows off his wealth because they both value the feeling that they can flaunt their