Gatsby Character Summary

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Character Summary Like Nick, Gatsby comes from the Midwest (North Dakota, although his father later comes from Minnesota). He dropped out of St. Olaf’s College after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back. This is why I think, early in the book, he is established as a dreamer who is charming, gracious, and a bit mysterious. As the story unfolds, however, I learned more and more what precipitates the mystery: that everything he has done in his adult life has been with the sole purpose of fulfilling the most unrealistic of dreams, to recapture the past. Gatsby is in many ways, as the title suggests, great, but when looking at him critically, some of the things he stands for may not be so admirable. Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gatsby’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter 3. In one sense, Gatsby's rags-to-riches success story makes him an representation of the American dream. He started life with little, as the son of fairly unsuccessful farmers. By the time he was a young man he had even less, having voluntarily breaking himself off from his family, unable
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