James Gatz to Jay Gatsby

A man was shot dead for loving a woman. This is how Jay Gatsby’s life ended in the novel, Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the 1920’s, American’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism were subordinated to the amoral pursuit of

wealth and materialism. Fitzgerald portrayed many of these prominent characteristics of Americans in the character, Gatsby, who despising poverty and longing for wealth and sophistication, rose from an impoverished childhood to become fabulously rich.

Gatsby was introduced as an innocent, hopeful man, who staked everything for his dream, Daisy. He literally created his own character, changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby in effort to transform his hopes and dreams of becoming rich and being reunited with his love. However, his passionate zeal blinded him to the fact that he has fallen in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace and charm that her economic background has molded her into, not Daisy herself. Blinded to this fact, he invested Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain. He was surprisingly loyal to Daisy, a rare characteristic in this novel, as he took the blame for Myrtle’s death. “Was Daisy driving?” “Yes…but of course I’ll say I was (144).” However, this loyalty led to the ultimate end of Gatsby’s life.

Gatsby is portrayed as a noble and confident man, surrounded by spectacular luxury and power accessible because of his money. Yet, he consistently tried to impress others with his possessions to prove that he truly belonged to the upper class. He lacked the confidence that his personality would exhibit his wealth and social prestige. When he and Nick went out to the town, he took his yellow car, which is admired by everyone. “It’s pretty, isn’t it, old sport (64)?” Instead of trying to reach Daisy directly, he bought a mansion across from her. “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay (79).” He started throwing elaborate parties in hopes that the extravagance of the party would draw Daisy into his mansion. Then he asks Nick’s help to meet her instead of doing it himself. He used objects to impress others, not his personality.

Gatsby’s best characteristic was perseverance to achieve the American dream. Although this dream is different in every person, Gatsby’s dream was to acquire happiness and love, Daisy, through wealth and power. When Nick attempted to show Gatsby the folly of his dream, he innocently replies saying, “ Why of course you can (111)!” This illustrated Gatsby’s will to achieve his dream. The reason for everything that he did was to get closer and closer to the green light, his goal, Daisy.

Gatsby was the victim of American dream. He lived all his life to achieve great wealth and his love Daisy, only to die a tragic death. Fitzgerald showed the corruption in marriages and made it seem that cheating was common during the1920’s. However, at the end, the married couple, Daisy and Tom, stayed together while others paid the prices for cheating with their lives. Gatsby, who lived his life in pursuing to be reunited his love and who stayed loyal to her, lost everything at the end. It seemed that Fitzgerald was stressing the fact that nice guys, Gatsby and Wilson, finished last. They both lost their loved ones to Tom.