Examples Of Ambition In The Great Gatsby

1260 Words6 Pages
Etienne De Leon Professor Prietas R. English III 2/27/2014 The Great Ambition Dream, love, and unreachable- pretty depressing concepts. You see them in life, witness them in action, and notice how many people suffer. They long for love, and their dreams, but to some, such ideas are unreachable. Although, to others it may be more mental thoughts of pessimism, but the rest, they literally can’t reach for their goals. In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, we meet a wealthy mysterious man named Gatsby. Through the eyes of his friend, Nick Carraway, we witness how Gatsby struggles with these ideals for the woman he loves, which in the end fails to gain, because his high expectations…show more content…
To move forth to the second point, we also come to the idea that Gatsby couldn’t achieve his dream, for he was struggling with the concept of the dream, and we realize this by seeing him trying to love a memory that ceased to exist. As we can be led in, we see in the end of chapter 6 that Gatsby throws a party, but he notices Daisy didn’t like it. As F. Scott Fitzgerald states, “’Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously ‘why of course you can!’” (116) Nick tells Gatsby (in summarization, this is not how he said it specifically) not to feel bad about the past, because you can’t repeat it. Gatsby, in reply, states the quote previously noted. The significance of this quote is that it displays us the feelings Gatsby has for his memories. This proves my main claim mainly because we can see that Gatsby want to revive the past, rather than to try and deal with what’s going on in his present. This also proves my thesis because we see Gatsby trying to achieve a concept of a dream but he’s struggling in the process because he’s trying to live in a past memory and bring it to the present. Also, we can see that Gatsby is even determined to do so. As we can see F. Scott Fitzgerald states, “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before” (117) It’s easy to see in this quote that Gatsby is really serious about going back in the past, and try to bring a piece of happiness that made him happy back to the present. The significance of the quote…show more content…
In chapter seven, during the confrontation Daisy can feel the pressure from Gatsby expecting her to break out and yell she never loved Tom. F. Scott Fitzgerald can show this by saying in Daisy’s words. “’Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now — isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’ She began to sob helplessly. ‘I did love him once — but I loved you too.’” (140) Gatsby expects that Daisy will be happy to leave Tom behind and break off her marriage with him. Gatsby's dream has been to build a fortune and reclaim the love that he once lost because, as he sees it, he was too poor for Daisy when they first met. This proves my claim because this displays, in Daisy’s words, that Gatsby did expect too much, he expected for her to make a big deal in front of Tom. This proves my thesis because we can see that he expects a lot of Daisy. Sadly enough, the author of this preposterous, and absurd essay could not find another quote to support this ideal. Although with some critical thinking he did find out more reasons that show that why what Gatsby expects of Daisy is too much. Though Gatsby is correct in his guess that Daisy still shares the old love that he feels, he is wrong to assume that she feels the same way about the reality of their history. She is unwilling or unable to undo her life in favor of a romantic vision of the future. She too fosters a romantic dream, but the dream of being a
Open Document