Jay Gatsby

Jay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby, is the epicenter of the novel. Jay Gatsby is part of all the main conflicts in this novel, and is the focus point of the major themes. Originally named James "Jimmy" Gatz, our young protagonist changed his name and dropped out of college to pursue business and wealth. After being an apprentice of Dan Cody for several years until his death, Gatsby acquired the knowledge, skills, and connections to use criminal activity as a means to attain immense wealth. In 1917 Gatsby falls in love with the beautiful and young Daisy Fay, during his military training. Daisy becomes the love of Gatsby's life, and henceforth sets all of the conflicts in the novel into motion. After achieving the rank of Major during the first World War and returning home to study at Trinity College, Oxford, Gatsby finds that the love of his life, Daisy, has married Tom Buchanon, our self centered, hypocritical, and aristocratically powerful antagonist. Gatsby's goal in life becomes to attain immense wealth and status in hopes of winning over Daisy from Tom, and our conflicts in the novel arise. Our perception of Gatsby changes quite a bit throughout the novel. At first Gatsby is introduced as a rather shady but interesting figure who is enormously wealthy and throws major parties every weekend at his mansion, next to Nick's home. Once we meet this Gatsby through our narrator and come to know of the entire situation that the novel encompasses, we see that Gatsby truly is just a man striving to make a misguided dream reality, and although he holds great personality traits and is a good fellow at heart raised in a poor but morally and ethically healthy family, he ultimately possesses a flaw that leads to his tragic death, which is his ignorance or stubbornness in differentiating dreams from reality. An interesting and symbolic addition to Gatsby's stubborn love for Daisy is the green light which Gatsby always looks to across the bay, which in fact is the green light on the pier to Daisy's and Tom's home. This light ( which is ironically only visible at night, just like a dream is only tangible during sleep) is symbolic of Gatsby's dream and how he is always striving to attain it yet it is not truly worth as much as he manifests it to be. Daisy is not as perfect as Gatsby has come to glorify her to be. This green light and Gatsby's interest in it by extension is symbolic of American society striving to attain the American Dream which truly ends up being a hollow promise of perfection that we have fabricated, and that is overvalued and mutilated from it's originality.

The American Dream Revealed

Daisy Buchanan in Society

Daisy relates to society through the novel in many ways. Daisy can be seen either literally, as the wealthy, prominent young woman who as outlined before is immoral, beautiful, and rather snobbish. Daisy however also philosophically resembles innocence, purity, and perfection during her early life, much like the original American dream. also like the American dream, she loses value and becomes tarnished or her purpose mislead over time. She loses her purpose and becomes just a bored housewife and show off wife for Tom. Also, Daisy represents upper class women in this exclusive group of super wealthy families during these prosperous times. I always associate a recurring thought with Daisy. Shakespeare's famous line; "Frailty, thy name is woman!", is rather appropriate to describe Daisy. Daisy is a frail character who is easily led into evil and physically and morally weak, and reflects on women of her stature. Therefore, she literally represents women of "East Egg" society during the 20's as well as philosophically the tainted or empty American dream, as her name implies. A daisy flower is pure, white, and perfect when it is blooming at a young age much like the American Dream was extravagant and beautiful in the beginning when it manifests thought, but the flower blooms and becomes tainted, withered, and eventually dies, also like the American Dream once people are faced with the reality of an empty or misguided promise. It is important to note that Daisy is Gatsby's ultimate dream, he lives his entire life trying to create the means necessary to impress her and eventually win her over from Tom Buchanan. This relationship represents society trying to attain the American Dream, as people live out their lives and kill themselves working to attain this dream yet once they come to understand that the perfection or glory they have striven for is just manifested thought, the American Dream is devalued to its original manifestation; just a dream.

Main Characters

We begin this story with Nick Carraway, the narrator, a soft spoken but keen man from a prominent, well off Middle Western family. Nick moves to Long Island, NY, and plans to meet up with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy introduces Nick to her husband Tom Buchanan, and a friend of hers, Jordan Baker, with whom Nick develops a brief romantic relationship throughout the course of the novel. Soon, Nick writes about his fabulously wealthy neighbor, one Mr. Gatsby.
We first see him as an intriguing but mysterious figure, and the center of many varying rumors. Next, Tom Buchanan ends up taking Nick to go with him and meet a woman named Myrtle Wilson, with whom Tom holds an affair. He meets Myrtle and her husband George Wilson, a poor working man who owns an auto garage along the Valley of Ashes. Eventually, Nick meets his mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Nick and Gatsby get along well and become friends. Last but not least, we are introduced by Gatsby to one of his business associates, Meyer Wolfsheim. A rather shady figure, he claims to have partaken in the fixing of the 1919 World Series. This briefly summarizes the main characters of the novel and how by they are encountered.