The Great Gatsby Essay #2

Riddhi Jain

AP English: Mr. George

27 July 2009

The Great Gatsby Essay

One of a Kind

When one strives to achieve a certain goal, any sense of pessimism results into an automatic failure. This brings us down until we have no hope or determination to achieve our goals. An apathetic person is easily driven to walk away from something unaccomplished. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby broke the pessimistic attitude that lingers in society. He did not allow the hardships he faced to discourage him or give him anything less than hope. Gatsby fought for what he wanted the most without allowing himself to become repressed. He strongly believed in himself and the person he cared about the most. Through all the difficult situations this man faced, he never gave up hope. Gatsby stepped out of the boundaries of an incompetent, disheartened person in society and fought for what he longed for.

After several years of being a poor soldier at war, Jay Gatsby never stopped loving Daisy. He began living in a fantasy world assuming Daisy would be waiting for him: “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (78). Gatsby failed to realize that a wealthy, young woman could not be waiting for a fortuneless beau for the rest of her life. Gatsby strongly believed Daisy would fall into his arms after meeting with the newly improved Jay Gatsby. He refused to understand that she had already started a family and was living a pleasant life without him. He had not given up hope from the day he left her that they would be together. Gatsby did not walk away hanging his head down when he heard Daisy was married and had a child. He only tried harder to win her back.

Gatsby could not convince himself to believe Daisy was in love with Tom and was completely over the relationship that she had with Gatsby. After one meeting, Daisy’s feelings for Gatsby returned, but at the end of the story, she chose to be with Tom. Daisy was simply infatuated by the man she once loved, but Gatsby was convinced otherwise: “She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!” (130). Gatsby put his foot down in confidence that Daisy was in love with him, not Tom. He was positive that Daisy supposedly loved Tom only as an appeasement for her true lost love. If this was so, and Daisy truly loved Gatsby, she would have divorced Tom with no hesitation or at least come to Gatsby’s funeral. To Daisy, Gatsby was just another man she had loved. Gatsby managed to keep such a strong faith about his relationship with Daisy that he could not bear to view the situation in a realistic point of view. It would be inappropriate and simply wrong to leave her husband and child for a man she had a fling with as a young woman. Gatsby was not discouraged by the fact that Daisy already settled down and made her life. With all his efforts, he continued to try to win her love back.

When all odds were against him, Gatsby never left his optimistic attitude. He was drowning in love for Daisy to the point where he even admitted his love for her to Tom: “Once in awhile I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and, in my heart I love her all the time” (131). Gatsby felt ashamed for some of the foolish acts he committed, but he expressed through his statements that no matter how imprudent his acts were, he still felt the same way he did when he first met Daisy. Gatsby was fearless. His overwhelmingly love for Daisy spoke to everybody in the room. Gatsby was willing to fight for Daisy. He was neither afraid nor intimidated by Tom. Gatsby said what he felt in his heart and did not let anything stop him. He did not let Tom’s anger and arrogance bring him down from what he loved the most.

Jay Gatsby was unsure how he wanted to approach Daisy after all the years he had been living in West Egg, but he never believed all hope was lost. He tried with all his power to rekindle the flame that once lit between them, but it was simply too late. If Gatsby was still in Daisy’s life and had not gone off to war, then there might have been a chance that he could have married her. After coming back from a dreadful war, Gatsby looked on the bright side and sought to find Daisy again. He waited patiently for five years before making an approach to meet her. Instead of walking away from the illusion painted before him that Daisy would come back to him, Gatsby never stopped believing in what they once had together.

Gatsby was a martyr for his love. He took the blame when Daisy hit Myrtle, and waited outside Daisy’s house that night to make sure she was okay. Gatsby was madly in love with her: “I want to wait here until Daisy goes to bed” (145). He became a wealthy man holding extravagant parties for strangers. Gatsby was the man people passed judgments about without even knowing him. All he wanted was Daisy’s love, not the gossip, the big name, and expensive items. Gatsby only acquired such fortunes to bring Daisy back to him, so that she could see how prosperous her poor lover turned into after all the years they were away from one another. Gatsby looked to the future he had waited so long to have with Daisy, the future of living happily ever after with no worries. On the inside, Gatsby was a simple man that wanted nothing more than what other men want in life. He kept his head up and did everything he could to win back Daisy and prove to her that he truly was the man of her dreams. In the end, Gatsby was not able to win his lover, but he had a strong heart to fight for her through the winding struggles he faced with Tom and himself.