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Gatsby Paradise Quotes
Personal Paradise The Forbidden Fruit Norman Vincent once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” In life, we are always taught to dream big and chase our dreams. However, sometimes dreaming big and chasing our dreams can bring us to our own hell. The exemplary novel, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays this idea. In seeking a kind of personal paradise all the characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and often in life- perhaps always- end up in their own personal hell. The Characters in the book that showed this the most were Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby, and Nick Carraway. Myrtle Wilson is an aggressively attractive woman who ends up in her own personal hell while trying to …show more content…
For instance, throughout the entire novel, Gatsby was trying to conquer Daisy over with his love for her. Everything Gatsby did was solely on impressing Daisy. This is evident in the quote, “He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.” (Fitzgerald, 89) His plans seemed to work for a while until he opened his eyes to reality. In the end, what he wanted the most ended up making his paradise a living hell. He realized that Daisy's child and Tom were the roadblocks that separate Daisy and him from each other. In addition, the fact that Daisy loved Tom foreshadowed that the creation of his personal hell. Another personal paradise that Gatsby strived for was gaining acceptance of the people around him and the society in which he wishes to belong in. Gatsby live in the West Egg commonly inhabited by people who have ‘new money. Gatsby in generally judges himself and want to makes sure everyone talks high about him. This is evident when Gatsby asks Nick about his point of view on him. “‘Look here, old sport,’ he broke out surprisingly, ‘What’s your opinion of me, anyhow?’” (Fitzgerald,63) Here, Gatsby seems to be worried about Nick’s impression of him. The reason why Gatsby is insecure is caused by where he inhabits, the West Egg, which is the less fashionable …show more content…
The first personal paradise that Nick tries to achieve is social status. Throughout the novel, one can tell that Nick is described as a selfless character. However, he does want to have a social life hence why he’s always around Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan. This is evident when he meets Jordan Baker, “At first, I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name.” (Fitzgerald, 58) On the other hand, he recognizes that people that have a high socioeconomic status are careless and tend to blame others to cover up their mistakes. Thus making him kill his desire to have higher socioeconomic status. The tragedies especially, the death of Myrtle Wilson, and his close friend Jay Gatsby were tied to the higher socioeconomic status and caused him to fall into his personal hell of chaos. Another personal paradise that Nick aims for is belonging. A reader can tell that Nick is an introvert, which is described as a shy and reticent person. Since he is introvert it is hard for him to belong. Hence why he's always roaming around in each setting that was encountered in the novel. This is seen especially when Nick first moved into West Egg. “It was a lonely for a day or so until… I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a
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