Is Gatsby Great?

Is Gatsby Great?

‘Gatsby turned out all right in the end’ – a judgment that takes Nick Caraway some time to make, and one that not everyone would agree with. This essay states three reasons why the character Jay Gatsby from the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ is not great. To some readers, Gatsby may seem like a great guy because he was doing anything and everything to make Daisy, the woman that he loved, love him back but Daisy has a husband, Tom, and Gatsby is with Daisy pursuing an affair and in reality this is anything but great. Another reason why Gatsby is not great is because you cannot know that Gatsby is great unless you know his history and past. You can’t just assume he is great because of his wealth and giant parties at his mansion in West Egg. Lastly, Gatsby believed and then achieved the American Dream, to have the dream life of riches, living in a mansion and finding love. But is this helping or contributing to society?

Some people may think of Gatsby as the good guy because he follows his heart and wants be with the woman he loves and will do anything to make it happen. But in reality, he is pursuing an affair with a married woman. Gatsby’s primary gain from these parties was not to indulge with the social parasites but it was to show Daisy that he is a man of wealth and properity. For example in chapter 5, it states “He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel …Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.”
Gatsby is not great because although he is following his love and doing anything to attract Daisy, she is married to tom and Gatsby fails to respect this.

You can’t just assume that Gatsby is great until you know his past. To begin with, rumors ran among Gatsby’s party guests saying that he was a German spy and some were certain that he killed a man. He was the protégé of Dan Cody, an unscrupulous- frontiers businessman and later, self-indulgent womanizer. Only by knowing his origins would it explain his behavior, to move to West Egg for no reason other than to buy a mansion to live across the bay from his love obsession, Daisy.
Nick is caraway is aware of this when he states “But young men didn’t – at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t – drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound”

Gatsby believed in the ‘American Dream’ of money, status and love and to some extent has achieved it, some may look up to him for this, but examine his behavior, he is throwing parties and not actually contributing to society. His parties at West Egg are vulgar displays of wealth attracting crowds of worthless socialites who did not even bother to find out who their host was. Gatsby is the Typical, the dreamer he aspires to rise from rags to riches, while accumulating such things as love, high status, wealth, and power on his way to the top; he throws lavish parties for countless people, yet he is a loner, even at he’s parties he watched his guests and doesn’t involve himself in the parties, he has no real friends. Gatsby strives for Daisy as part of his American dream and he describes her voice as “Full of money- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song in it” And although he as achieved the American dream, has a mansion and endless money, he still aspires for the unattainable. He regarded his life as an opportunity bounded by the limits of the imagination therefore Gatsby’s life is not realistic. He is not giving anything back to society.

Gatsby is not the hero when, although he took the blame for the death of Myrtle Wilson, he was dishonest. Gatsby lied when he covered up for Daisy, does this make Gatsby great? ‘ “Was Daisy driving?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment, “but of course I’ll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive- and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming to other way.” ‘

To conclude, Jay Gatsby is not great because firstly, although he was doing following his passion for Daisy, he was still having an affair with a married woman. Secondly, you cannot know for sure that Gatsby is great until you know his past. Thirdly Gatsby isn’t contributing to the society by living the American dream he isn’t giving anything back to the society, lastly, he took the blame for the car crash but he was dishonest.