Great Gatsby Essay

Jacob Anason

The Great Gatsby

“The Great Gatsby” is filled with characters that use wealth to get what they want, the most obvious being Jay Gatsby. It also has characters with strange behavior that can be analyzed to find out their deeper thoughts. Gatsby himself is especially interesting to get a better look at. He throws big extravagant parties but at the same time is somewhat withdrawn and seems distracted. He has a big house and lots of money but doesn’t seem happy with it all. Gatsby needed all of his wealth to make him happy, but it wasn’t the wealth itself that he thought would accomplish that, it was the love he thought would come with it. This essay will look at “The Great Gatsby” through the psychological and economic lenses.

West Egg and East Egg were two very different communities. East Egg was very wealthy and fashionable. It was filled with giant houses that looked more like palaces than homes. Across the bay was West Egg. The west was very different. Nick describes it best when he says, “I lived at West Egg- the well, the less fashionable of the two” (page 5). It is easy to see the difference in social class here. On one side you have rich fancy mansions, and on the other Nick is paying $80 a month rent. Gatsby’s mansion was an exception to this however; he had a magnificent mansion next door to Nick. There is a reason that Gatsby chose to live in the less wealthy Egg. He was plenty fashionable to live in the East, but there was a specific reason he didn’t. That will come up later in the essay.

Gatsby has plenty of money and shows it by his popular parties every Saturday night. Few people at these parties had actually been invited; the rest had just come from the city to have a good time. Many of them were not of wealth and came to take advantage of Gatsby’s money and generosity. Gatsby doesn’t seem to care about this fact and it even seems like he isn’t happy at these parties. “Some time before he introduced himself I’d gotten a strong impression that he was picking his words with care. “Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself, a butler hurried over toward him with information that Chicago was calling him on the wire” (page 48). He puts on a face for the parties to seem happy but inside he isn’t. His work is more important to him than being social at his own party.

Why isn’t he happy if he is so rich? Why does he throw the parties if he doesn’t enjoy them? By using the psychological lens to look at what we have learned from the economic lens we can find the answers to these questions. On page 21 Nick sees Gatsby staring off his dock at a distant green light. With all of the money that Gatsby has it seems reasonable to think that there is nothing he would long for. Yet, Nick observes him reaching out towards the light as if it’s something he wants that is just out of his reach. What could it be that he is reaching for? Gatsby is reaching for love. He knows that Daisy, the girl he loves, is just across that water and he is reaching for her. The only reason he worked so hard to get his money was because he thought it would bring her to him. This is why he lives in the less fashionable egg. He wants to be as close to Daisy as he can, but he isn’t confident enough to live right by her. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out arms farther… And one fine morning-” (Page 180). The green light was more than just a symbol of Daisy, it represents the entire human race’s struggle to recreate the past and achieve their life goals. “’I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’ ‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” (page 110) This quote shows Gatsby and Nick talking to each other, Nick believes you can change the past. but Gatsby thinks differently. The past is what he longs for when he reaches toward the green light. Nick clearly thinks that whats in the past is forever in the past and he has learned to move on, but Gatsby can't let it go. He got a taste of perfection in his youth and has been chasing it ever since.

From studying Gatsby it is clear to see that even though he worked hard to acquire his wealth, it is not the wealth that he wants. His acquisition of wealth, the parties, moving to West Egg, everything he did was another step in his persistent quest to recreate the past he had with Daisy. The money was merely a means to an end. Gatsby understands that the best things in life can't be touched or even seen, but they are the things we feel inside and make us happy. In the end Gatsby died, but he died happy. He finally got to be with Daisy and that was all he ever wanted. He was happier dying young knowing he accomplished what he wanted to than if he had lived to be 100 and never got back together with Daisy. Gatsby said it best when he said, “What was the point of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” (page 150) Everything in life is so much better when there is someone to share it with.

 

Cite

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.