What Is The Failure In The Great Gatsby

Goals can drive a man to great lengths to get what he wants even to the point of insanity and recklessness. Gatsby had great plans almost living the “American Dream” living in a waterfront mansion, acquiring endless amounts of money and even throwing lavish and exquisite parties and almost getting his “dream girl”. At the beginning of the story it seemed that Gatsby acquired greatness, but we later realize that the man we thought we knew was carrying out his life to get Daisy despite her marriage with Tom. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, the main character Gatsby had great plans for the future, but his ways of carrying out those plans defined his character as weak and menial, since he degraded his family, attempted to steal

He believed that “his parents were shiftless and farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all”(Fitzgerald 98). Family is your upbringing and you need to accept it, you cannot just try to ignore it and act like they are not your family because you cannot change it. Gatsby’s main failure in life was that he was not born into a wealthy family instead a hardworking low class family. James Gatz’s main goal in life is to get wealthy and climb up to the upper class unlike his parents, this does not sound awful, but his ways of executing his goals were inappropriate and wrong. Gatsby did not obey the fifth commandment “honor you mother and father.” At “Gatsby’s” funeral Nick talks to “Gatsby’s” father and refers to him as Mr. Gatsby, Jay’s father demands “Gatz is my name”(page 168). This shows that Mr. Gatz has respect for himself and what he has done and his son could have never said his line since he saw his family as failures.

Gatsby may not have been a great person but that does not justify the fact that almost all of his peers did not attend his funeral. Gatsby is not a great person because he disrespected his family members, lied about his past and future intentions, and he tried to steal a married woman from her husband. His goals may have been aligned with greatness, but his execution failed and was