eng 215 Essay

Most think that Gatsby and Tom are very different characters but they are the same in more ways than one would think. Both Gatsby and Tom use a lot of people in this novel. For example, Gatsby is only using Nick to get to Daisy. Gatsby uses other people as well; he only throws the parties to see if Daisy would come. Tom, like Gatsby, uses people. Tom used Daisy when he married her just so he could have someone to settle down with. When he meets Myrtle he realizes he truly does not love Daisy and he keeps Myrtle for sexual fulfilment. After Myrtle dies Tom runs off with Daisy because she is the only one that he has left. Both men live in luxury and both men think they should have Daisy. Both Gatsby and Tom will do almost anything and everything to get what

Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.

“‘I think he [Gatsby] half expected her [Daisy] to wander into one of his parties, some night,…” (Chapter 4). Yet, no matter what Gatsby does, his American Dream is unattainable, because Daisy chooses her husband, Tom Buchanan, over Gatsby. “Her [Daisy] frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had had, were definitely gone” (Chapter 7). The protagonist from The Great Gatsby desires something he cannot obtain, similar to the protagonist from The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield.

The Great Gatsby is considered to be a great American novel full of hope, deceit, wealth, and love. Daisy Buchanan is a beautiful and charming young woman who can steal a man’s attention through a mere glance. Throughout the novel, she is placed on a pedestal, as if her every wish were Gatsby’s command. Her inner beauty and grace are short-lived, however, as Scott Fitzgerald reveals her materialistic character. Her reprehensible activities lead to devastating consequences that affect the lives of every character. I intend to show that Daisy, careless and self-absorbed, was never worthy of Jay Gatsby’s love, for she was the very cause of his death.

He cares about her so much, yet Tom has been cheating on Daisy since the beginning of their relationship. It is made clear that Tom does not value her at all, so Gatsby does not deserve the pain he receives when Daisy chooses to stay with Tom over him, because of how much he loves Daisy.

Gatsby has everything that he could wish for, except of love. Gatsby tried everything he could to achieve Daisy, but failed to do so. Gatsby always thought that Daisy actually loved him and that he was very close to achieving her. One time Gatsby showed Daisy all of his luxuries in the house. Daisy was impressed by how rich and wealthy Gatsby has become as time passed. Daisy says “never seen so many shirts like these” (87). This quote shows how Daisy likes materialistic things. Gatsby worked hard on his dream unlike Tom. Tom Buchanan who is the husband of Daisy has no purpose and goal in his life except his affair with Myrtle. He never really loved Daisy. On the other hand when Gatsby showed all of his English shirts Daisy begins to cry and they plan their future plans of meeting each other. We can see how Daisy is attracted to Gatsby simply because of his wealth. She loves Gatsby but she loves his money more then she actually loves him. This goes to show how people’s mentality worked in the 1920’s. Daisy, Gatsby, and all other characters live a very superficial life. Gatsby wants to achieve Daisy by the means of fortune and how Daisy is attracted to Gatsby because of his wealth.

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on Daisy Buchanan’s relationship with Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Tom and Gatsby both love Daisy in different ways, but the fact that they both want Daisy as their own makes them similar. Both Tom and Gatsby share many similarities while having even a greater amount of differences. While differences are good, they sometimes lead to unhappiness, jealousy, and grief.

It’s a common misconception that money is equal to happiness, and Daisy is a sad, bored woman, afraid of the future. She is selfish and self centered, caring so much for the wealth that she believes will make her happy that in Chapter 7 her voice is said to be “full of money” (pg #). All the worse, when she kills Myrtle, she feels no remorse whatsoever, as she is incapable of caring for anyone but herself. Gatsby cannot see any of her bad qualities. He simply sees a beautiful young woman that he thinks he deserves. In chapter 8, Nick says that “It excited [Gatsby], too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”(pg#). Gatsby is blinded by his desire for Daisy, fueled by the wants of other men, that he sees nothing bad about her. Daisy loved Tom and Gatsby equally and for the same reason: Their wealth. With Gatsby dead Daisy returns to Tom not even shaken by his death, and just as nick says they would do, they retreat from the chaos they cause into their money when they move away.

Tom attends the party in many ways to try and ruin Gatsby he is critical about everything like also the decorations the people that are there, the way Gatsby behaves. Anything he can criticize of he does so also he attempts to make a rumor that Gatsby is a bootlegger. And decides after the party that he will really get into Gatsby’s past and try to harm him. And this starts to take a path of destruction. It starts becoming clear that Daisy’s love for Gatsby is false just like the love for Tom and there sadly Gatsby’s love that he thought to find when he asks Daisy to abandon Tom and be at his side. So Tom wants to ruin Gatsby and Gatsby wants Daisy which is a pretty big difference and he is not looking for any paypack like Tom is.

Daisy stuck with Tom through years of his cheating, and when Nick invited her and Gatsby over so they could meet again, she had another chance. Gatsby did everything he could to become rich and to find Daisy. This meant that Daisy had everything she could have wanted. She had a man who loved her, who was wealthy, and all she had to do was end her marriage with Tom. What Gatsby had was new money, and Tom had old money. “What Daisy requires is not only money but old money. Old money is better than new, not because it can somehow buy more or because they will be more of it, but because it has fashioned the tastes, values, attitudes, matters, and intellects others possessors.”(Lathbury 59). Something about the old money was more valuable and appealing to Daisy, so she gave up Gatsby to be with Tom.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is the story of one man searching for a long-lost love and the struggles he goes through to get her back. It is the story of Jay Gatsby, his wealth, and most importantly, his awe-inspiring love for Daisy Buchanan, his first and only true love. Gatsby spends all of his time trying to build up a life to impress Daisy and win her back from her rich, jealous, and aggressive husband, Tom Buchanan.

The Great Gatsby a, novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows a cast of characters abiding in the town of East and West Egg on affluent Long Island in the summer of 1922. Each of the characters, while part of the same story line, have different priorities and agendas, each character working towards achieving what they think would benefit them the most. As The Great Gatsby’s plot thickens the characters constantly show their discontent of the American Dream that they are living, always expressing their greed for more, three particular offenders of this deadly sin are Tom, Daisy and Gatsby himself. The characters motives stem from a mixture of boredom, a need and longing for the american dream, and simple selfish human

Tom and Daisy only have one common interest, and that is money. We can see an example of this in chapter four when Daisy says, “"Here, deares'." She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. "Take 'em down-stairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mind. Say: 'Daisy's change' her mine!'" (Fitzgerald Chapter 4) When Daisy is drunk, she wants to change her mind and marry the man she truly loves. Daisy did not marry Gatsby in the first place because he was poor. What Tom and Daisy had at one point could be seen as true love but only because he had the wealth to provide her with the lifestyle she

He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions” (149). Gatsby felt that Daisy’s glamour and wealth must have made her attractive to other men, “it increased her value in his eyes” and held more appeal than her love for him. However, at the same time, Daisy 's desires are also driven by wealth, but she is not attracted to the new money that Gatsby has. Tom’s old money is much more appealing to Daisy. The two men fight over Daisy and in the end she chooses Tom because of his historic wealth.

The roaring 20’s was an extrodinary time, and F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the feeling in his book The Great Gatsby. Throughout the book many of the characters showed the importance of the 20’s through their differences and similarities. Two main male characters, Tom and Gatsby, were both different and similar in many ways. Tom and Gatsby were both liars, but they also loved Daisy, and they were different on how they lived.