Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby Essay

In The Great Gatsby, the main character Jay Gatsby is a difficult character to analyze because his personalities are perceived by the narrator Nick Carraways in which we cant make direct judgment about Gatsby and he is also a diverse character who has different traits that appear at a time in the novel. He, for many reasons, is a bootlegger as the character in the novel described because he conducts illegal businesses with Wolfshiem that makes him criminal. Despite of this fact, there is one considerable point about Gatsby is that he is the great as states in the title of the book. Because two of his poor and heart breaking experiences in the past, he works hard in every of his effort to get it back. In the former year when Gatsby is still a young and penniless man, he meets his benefactor Dan Cody who teaches him how to get wealthy. But unfortunately, Dan Cody died and leaves nothing for him. This motivates him to transform himself to a new person. Secondly, when Gatsby is attending college, he falls in love with a beautiful rich girl named Daisy. But Daisy chose to marry Tom because Gatsby is poor and powerless at that time. For this reason, Gatsby needs to get rich in order to win Daisy back. Fitzgerald focuses on these two main causes that lead to Gatsbys greatness in which it is from his ability of self-invented, that he is an idealistic dreamer throughout the story in which it is connected to the American Dream, his indomitable mind and his loyalty to Daisy and also the length of time that he is living in the past.

Jay Gatsby makes himself into a completely new person in order to pursue his dream throughout his life and win Daisy back. He knows that at least he has got himself changes in a way-change his destiny. In chapter six, the readers encounter Gatsbys transformation. In the formative years, Gatsby is an old and unsuccessful farmers son. He is poor and low statues young man who lives in a boat. One day, he meets Dan Cody which he got employed to be steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor (100). This is when Gatsby completely changes himself into a new man. James Gatz-that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career (98). The author writes this quote is to show the decision that Gatsby has to grab tightly his dream. Gatsby knows that James Gatz is an uneducated and unintelligent buster but instead, he alters his original name to Jay Gatsby which he sees that it is a newborn person that no one knows him. It implies that he is no longer the past fate but is the present fate. Comparing the jobs that Gatsby did in the previous years before he met Dan Cody, there is a big gap between those occupations. For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam-digger and a salmon-fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed(98). Imagine who do those kinds of jobs? It is probably the people who have no education and skill. When Dan Cody found Gatsby is an extravagantly and ambitious man, he immediately employed Gatsby as steward, mate, skipper, secretary and even jailor (100). The jobs that Dan Cody offered for Gatsby tend to be a little high statue and require more experiences and skill. This employment also serves as the preparation of Gatsbys later life to make his dream comes true. Also, Gatsby develops a sense of wealthy feeling when he followed Dan Cody. To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world (100). Gatsby at this point starts to get in contact with the richness in this world to prepare for his later life in winning back Daisy. This quote also foreshadows that Gatsby as a young man who knows nothing will eventually becomes the richest and powerful person when he is pursuing his dream later in the chapters. As the story proceeds, completely changes his attitude and personalities. When Nick introduced Gatsby he comments, and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No-Gatsby turned out all right at the end (2). It shows that Gatsby transforms himself that Nick can never find the original Gatsby anymore.

Now that Gatsby has experience on everything that Dan Cody taught him, he eventually starts to dream about his dream. He is an idealistic dreamer throughout the novel that no one else in the story did and for this reason it makes Gatsby a diverse and greatness character. After Daisy and Tom had came to Gatsbys parties, Gatsby thought and says, [I] wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: I never loved you (109). This shows that Gatsby dream about how Daisy says something bad and leaves Tom. Therefore, he could take the advantage to woo Daisy back. But in reality, this is not going to happen. Also, when Nick, Jordan, Daisy, Tom and Gatsby went to the town together and stayed in one of the Plaza Hotel, Gatsby and Tom is having a conflict about the affair between Gatsby and Daisy. When Tom interrogated Gatsby about the affair, Gatsby argues, She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!(130). This quote shows that Gatsby is misunderstand his relationship between him and Daisy. Its been five years that he and Daisy havent met each other. There might be some changes in Daisys heart that Gatsby wouldnt know about. But since Gatsby is conceited, he thought that Daisy is still the past one. Furthermore, the author Fitzgerald uses a different technique for the sentence that described Gatsby. He always writes the sentence in a dreaming and unrealistic way to describe Gatsby. For example,

But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and

fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night, A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock tricked on the

washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon

the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness

closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a

while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of

the world was founded securely on a fairys wing.

In this paragraph, Fitzgerald uses personification and exaggeration to bring out the Gatsbys personality.

Jay Gatsby represents the main theme of The American Dream that he is a hopeful man and never gives up his hope. Gatsbys everlasting hope makes him deserved for the title The Great Gatsby. It encounters in the very beginning of the story in chapter one. When Nick comes back from visiting Tom and Daisy, he sees, He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward-and distinguished except a single green light. (21). In The Great Gatsby, the green light symbolizes Gatsbys love for Daisy and everything he hopes for. The green light also represents part of the American Dream. This quote shows the far distance for Gatsby to reach for his goal. As Nick described it, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther And one fine morning"(182). Despite the hardship of Gatsby to achieve his goal, he keeps moving forward. He does not want to defeat when he has done so much for his success.

Although Gatsby is considered as a bootlegger, he is still the great Gatsby-the one who has the ability to transform himself; the one who is an idealistic dreamer; the one who never gives up his hope and the one who is always loyal to Daisy. He uses his dream as his motivation to actually live in this world and turns it into real.