Exploring Reality in the Great Gatsby
Exploring Reality in the Great Gatsby
In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is one who follows his dreams as though they are reality. He strives to construct his own perfect world. He builds his life of wealth and luxury in hopes of attracting an old love interest, Daisy. Gatsby’s power accrues and eventually creates his own destruction. In Gatsby’s world, little is actually reality. Everything about Gatsby is fake: his name, his past, his money, his friends, his ideas and his house. “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 fairy’s wing” (105). He can not see the fine line between reality and fantasy. His mansion is the center of all that is fake where there is little that is unaffected.
When Nick, Daisy’s cousin, observes Gatsby’s parties, he notices that Gatsby himself has little to do with his guests. Is this because he is a poor host? No. Gatsby’s guests come for the party. Since it is during the period of prohibition, Gatsby’s a bootlegger and his house is one of many places which people can obtain alcohol. He continues to throw elegant, expensive parties, in which he observes the gayety in hopes that one day Daisy will appear. Week after week he waits for her. He has spent the past five years creating a life to which he thinks Daisy will be attracted.
Previously, Gatsby’s mentor, Dan Cody, introduced him to a world of wealth. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God- a phrase which, if it means anything, means just- and he must be about His Father’s Business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” (104).He spied Cody’s yacht out on Lake Superior when he was seventeen. Gatsby rowed out to the massive boat and Cody questioned him. Cody was impressed with Gatsby’s striking personality. Cody then hired Gatsby to work on the ship, which was where they became good friends. “He was employed in a vague personal capacity – while he remained with Cody he was in run steward,...