He set himself up for failure in dedicating his life to achieving an unreachable goal. Gatsby suspected in brevity when he first reunited with Daisy that she "tumbled short of his dreams", though "not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion"(101). He suspected his image of her may have become disproportionate with reality over the years. However, the uncompromising, obstinate nature of his pursuit refused to let Gatsby surrender Daisy when he "seemed so very near to her"(98). This fabricated image "had gone beyond her, beyond everything"(101).
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is blinded by his love for Daisy to the point that he will go to any length to protect her. His love and devotion for Daisy resulted in him overlooking the reality before him, and would ultimately get him killed. Holden Caulfield and Jay Gatsby both make the effort to generate what they have idealized in their dreams a reality, but doing so is not possible, as their realities cannot be changed. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield struggles with accepting that what his ideals are in his life are not what actually exist in the outside world.
Tom discredits his name to draw Daisy away from him when he finds that Gatsby has become interested in Daisy. When Tom confronts Gatsby, and begins to crumble his illusion, Gatsby is as cool and confident as always. Fitzgerald portrays the theme of illusion versus reality through the personality of a character, relationships, and symbols. Illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality, in this case for personality of a character the perfect example is Tom Buchanan, displays that he is a powerful man though his wealth. He is an arrogant and a bully, his attitude showed the part that was not true.
She shows delight as she sees herself in the mirror without the birthmark on her cheek any longer. Georgiana feels badly for Aylmer, she sees that he is happy that he has made her perfect, but he has aimed to high for perfection, willing to lose the love of his life as he strives to create perfection. Georgiana then passes away as the last tint of the birthmark fades away, again leaving Aminadab in a chuckle. Almost as he knew that his boss’ obsession would cost him his great love. Georgiana knew what would be the most likely outcome of her husband’s experiment on her, yet was willing to submit to it to make him happy.
Gatsby would do anything to make someone happy. As one of the twins mentioned whilst at one of Gatsby’s parties ‘There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that, he doesn’t want trouble with anybody’. Altogether Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are different in many ways as Tom is an arrogant, sexist bully and has no respect of others around him where as throughout the novel you get a sense that Gatsby is more of a kind and refined character. However Tom and Gatsby have their similarities as they both want Daisy but for different reasons- tom for his persona and Gatsby for true love. And both Tom and Gatsby enjoy their luxurious lifestyles and they both like to party all the time.
The American Dream all the characters are chasing is ruined by reality of life. Gatsby dream involves him falling in love with Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby feared that Daisy did not wait for him because he was not rich. That’s why Gatsby did crime to get rich. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan.
Not once does F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the words “American Dream”, but it is inevitable that he shows the impossibility of achieving happiness through the American Dream because the American Dream is just a form of trickery to get people to crave greater things in life. In The Great Gatsby, one of the
This shows that she is only with him for his money and power. When Daisy gave birth to Pammy she said “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”(Fitzgerald 21).She implies here that the world is no place for a woman and all she can do is hope to survive through beauty rather than brains. However during the reunion Gatsby is still blinded by his dream. Even though Daisy isn’t the same as he remembers.
Nick compliments Gatsby, once he is dead, and in fact this is the only time he ever did compliment him. He says Gatsby was ‘wroth the whole damn bunch put together.’ By this compliment it makes you ponder as to whether Gatsby viewed the other man that showed an interest in Daisy as competition. Perhaps winning over Daisy’s heart was a way of proving his worth to others, but also him, and this makes the reader question his motives for loving Daisy. Class influences his love and his feelings for Daisy and furthermore it should be questioned if due to these delusions he is even aware that class affected the pull of his
Although, he is not in love with the Daisy’s personality, he is infatuated by her looks. One could say that he is in love with the illusion of daisy. The idea of her still being the same girl he left behind before going to war is the idea he obsesses over. He does not realize that he can not just pick up where he left off. When he returned to his beloved Daisy, she had broken her promise and married a wealthy man as well as had a child.