Why Is Daisy's Ambition In The Great Gatsby Great

After an entire lifetime of hardwork and ambition, greatness does not mean success. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, a powerful millionaire, navigates through the struggles of his impoverished childhood leading him to be a renowned figure. Through his adulthood, Gatsby is only motivated by one factor: reuniting with his unrequited love, Daisy Buchanan. While Gatsby devoted his life to becoming successful to meet Daisy’s needs, she spent her time devoted to her husband Tom and their child. Despite having good intentions, Jay Gatsby is not great due to his denialism and his inevitable demise.

Jay Gatsby’s determination to win Daisy back is just a facade for his actual struggle, failing to accept the reality of love. As

The primary reason Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship ended was due to Gatsby’s poverty, as Daisy was used to a lavish lifestyle. However even after Daisy has married a man who can meet those needs, Gatsby still attempts to win Daisy over with his large sum of money. After Gatsby’s long awaited reunion with Daisy, he is surprised as she introduces him to her daughter whom he never “had ever really believed in its existence before” (Fitzgerald 117). Gatsby, who has heard Daisy’s daughter mentioned multiple times, thought that if he acted like her child does not exist, there would be no resistance in Daisy leaving her current family to start one with him. His naiveness to Daisy’s life is concerning considering the reality is she has started a life without Gatsby, whether he believes so or not. Gatsby confidently reveals to his friends that Daisy plans to leave

After Gatsby’s untimely death, he is forgotten by many people with only a few to remember him and attend his funeral (Fitzgerald 174). Gatsby did not spend his life building friendships, he spent his time making money to impress Daisy. Unless a popular figure leaves a legacy built by their hardwork and determination, which Gatsby died without, they will go down in history forgotten. Nick, one of the few people who cares about Gatsby, begins to realise that Gatsby “had lost the old warm world, [and] paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald 161). Gatsby built his entire empire for Daisy to appreciate, but because she never left her family for him, his lifelong dream was worthless. Gatsby had everything, a beautiful house, a car, money, but there was no meaning to any of it since he did not have the one thing he was longing for, Daisy. As Nick visits Gatsby’s house one final time, he realises that Gatsby finally knows “what a grotesque thing a rose is” (Fitzgerald 161). A rose, symbolic of love and beauty, is now ugly and dead, just like his and Daisy’s romance. Looking at the rose, Gatsby knows his dream has failed and Daisy will never return the love he longs from her. While alive, Gatsby did not focus on his own self but instead Daisy, which led to his unsucessful