Downfall Of The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a love story between new money Jay Gatsby and old money Daisy Buchanan, as they meet for the first time in five years since Gatsby left to fight in World War I. When Gatsby returns from the war, Daisy is married and he works to save up enough money to throw extravagant parties, in hopes of getting Daisy to walk into one and meet him. No matter how outstand Gatsby’s efforts may seem, he is not truly in love with Daisy, but rather is infatuated with how she is a symbol of status and is driven by his desire to rise up the social food chain. This leads to Gatsby’s ultimate downfall and portrays real life consequences of when a relationship is based on the selfish and materialistic desires of one person.
Gatsby’s interest in …show more content…
For his entire life, Gatsby has dreamed of being rich, going as far as not accepting his parents as being his true parents because they were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people.” (cite) He reinvented himself into “the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” When Dan Cody came into his life with a “yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world,” Gatsby left home and chased after his American Dreams. Later in the book, Gatsby describes Daisy’s voice as “full of money,” which gives us key insight as to why Gatsby fell in love with her. When Gatsby first met Daisy, he was a soldier and was still keeping up this ideal version of himself he first invented. Therefore, he was still “extravagantly ambitious.” Continuing to chase his American Dream, Gatsby began to go after a new symbol of wealth, Daisy, who was, “safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor,” something that Gatsby felt and rejected during his adolescence. Daisy, in this sense, was “high in a white palace” and seemed unattainable without hope and hard work. But, …show more content…
But the longer Gatsby is away from Daisy, the more time he has to imagine his possible romance, ultimately leaving him vulnerable to disappointment. If Gatsby could find a new symbol, the hard work that comes with pining after Daisy would disappear. Ever since Daisy, “vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life,” Gatsby was left with “nothing,” If that ‘nothing’ was material wealth, Gatsby attained it in a few years after he began bootlegging. But, he continued to work and throw parties, showing that the ‘nothing’ was much more than money. Instead, he worked so he could, “recover ... some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.” Three years of hard work so he could, “return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was. . .” (cite) Because it has been established that Daisy represents Gatsby’s success, when Daisy leaves Gatsby, it symbolizes Gatsby losing his success. Him going through so much trouble to attract Daisy shows how determined he is to achieve his dream. As a side effect of his determination, Gatsby begins to daydream about what his romance with Daisy would be like. As Gatsby threw himself, “into [his dream] with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way,” he become more and more