Wealth And Exuberance In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wealth and exuberance are a common facade used to mask the unhappiness of the worlds most successful people. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in New York’s West Egg filled with new money millionaires, throws wild parties in the roaring twenties. The narrator and friend of Gatsby, Nick Carroway, observes the way in which Gatsby amasses actually his new money status is through a series of less-than-legal activities. Nevertheless, Jay Gatsby’s true dream is not a lavish lifestyle, rather gaining back the love of his life. Gatsby’s existence is dedicated to impressing Daisy Buchanan and attempting to steal her away from her husband, Tom Buchanan. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby

Gatsby’s obsession for Daisy Buchanan compels him to commit various actions and have different beliefs that a great man would not have. Gatsby dedicated his life to attaining a status that of a man that Daisy would respect and admire. He threw great parties only for the small chance that Daisy would one day attend. Gatsby seeks reassurance from Nick that Daisy will attend one of his parties, probingly saying that “‘I suppose Daisy’ll call too.’ [Gatsby looks] at [Nick] anxiously, as if he hopes [Nick would] corroborate this. ‘I suppose so’” (Fitzgerald 154). This nervous moment for Gatsby illustrates his dependence on Daisy for his happiness. He is unable to find the joy in the extravagant lifestyle that he has made for himself, rather focusing on attaining love from a woman that is surely not going to reciprocate the same feelings. Furthermore, Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy detaches him from reality in the way that he delusionally believes that he can bring the past back to life. He debates the this topic with Nick as he hangs onto the fact that he and Daisy once had a love for eachother 5 years ago and idealizes the concept of attaining those times again. This

The mysterious person of Jay Gatsby has always always perplexed the visitors of his parties. Nobody truly know where he came from or where he has amassed his wealth, although there seem to be many speculations. Some of these rumors are, in fact, fueled by Gatsby himself. He once claims, “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West–all dead now. I was brought up in America bt educated at Oxford because all of my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition’” (Fitzgerald 65). This elaborate backstory of Jay Gatsby is all a fabrication of a fake life that he employs to hide his real method of making money. Not only does this show that Gatsby is a man not only capable, but willing to lie and deny the reality of life. Additionally, Gatsby’s background gets further picked apart when Tom exclaims that he knows how Gatsby amassed his wealth. He accusingly states that “‘[Gatsby] and this Wolfsheim brought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter…I picked him for a bootlegger the first tim I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong’” (Fitzgerald 133). Gatsby responds with indifferency to these claims suggesting his lack of grasp that he has on this situation. Gatsby’s involvement in these activities just seem to further promote the idea that he is a shady character that