Is Love Unobtainable In The Great Gatsby ?

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Julie Chemla The Great Gatsby In the Great Gatsby, love is presented as an unobtainable fantasy. From your reading of the first 5 chapters of the Great Gatsby, discuss this statement. There are many examples in the novel to prove this. Gatsby is in love with Daisy, however they are not together. Even though they have been together in the past, the fact that they are not together at the time of the story shows how their relationship must have failed and therefore love is seen as unobtainable. He seems to place Daisy so high on a pedestal that she is in a way already unreachable. He loves her so much, with so much passion, worked so hard to be up to her standards (bought the house, throws all these parties…). However, she has never turned up to any of his parties or shown any interest in a certain Gatsby showing that love is unobtainable. Jordan mentions to Nick that “he half expected her to wander into one of his parties but she never did, then he began asking people casually if they knew her”. We see how much patience he has had over the years and how obsessive he has become over finding her. This brings out the fact that Daisy is a married woman. Daisy Buchanan, was a subdued socialite who was married to the dim witted Tom Buchanan. She is the perfect example of how women of her level of society were supposed to act in her day. The circumstances surrounding Gatsby and Daisy's relationship kept them eternally apart. For Daisy to have been with Gatsby would have been forbidden, due to the fact that she was married. Marriage at the time was all about finding a suitable match, not about finding the one you truly loved. This means that even society makes love unobtainable and we can see that through the fact that Daisy’s mum wasn’t even supportive of her love for Gatsby when she had found her “packing her
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