Character Analysis Jay Gatsby Like Nick, Gatsby comes from the Midwest (North Dakota, although his father later comes from Minnesota). Early in the book, he is established as a dreamer who is charming, gracious, and a bit mysterious 3/6/ · June 3, by Essay Writer The character Jay Gatsby, also known as James Gatz, is the key character in The Great Gatsby. He started out as a poor farmer’s son in North Dakota, and dropped out of college in Minnesota. He joined the military and during training meets Daisy, a beautiful rich woman living nearby, whom he falls in love blogger.comted Reading Time: 6 mins 13/4/ · A Character Analysis of Jay Gatsby April 13, by Essay Writer Jay Gatsby the hero of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. An artful culmination depicted and propelled the American Literature
The Great Gatsby character analysis - blogger.com
Book Guides. Nick first comes to know him as an incredibly wealthy, mysterious man who throws lavish parties, but we eventually learn his background: a boy from humble origins who is desperate to win back the love of a rich woman, Daisy, and loses everything in his last attempt to win her over.
So where did Gatsby get his money? Does he actually love Daisy? And what's so "great" about him anyway? Jay gatsby character analysis essay guide explains Gatsby's rags-to-riches story, jay gatsby character analysis essay, what he does in the novel, his most famous lines, and common essay topics.
Read on for an in-depth guide to all things Jay Gatsby. Our citation format in this guide is chapter. We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it Paragraph beginning of chapter; middle of chapter; on: end of chapteror use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.
He smiled understandingly--much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, jay gatsby character analysis essay, that you may come across four or five times in life.
It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
Precisely at that point it vanished--and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. Gatsby's very first appearance is a bit surprising and anti-climatic—he is presented as just another party-goer of Nick's age before it's revealed that he's actually the famous Gatsby.
That said, Nick's description of Gatsby's smile—"rare" and "full of eternal reassurances" that "understood you the way you wanted to be understood"—sets Gatsby apart as someone special and alluring. Gatsby has tan skin and short hair, but otherwise most of Gatsby's characterization comes through his dialogue and actions—Nick doesn't linger on his physical appearance the way he does with other characters especially Tom and Myrtle.
Perhaps Gatsby having more of a "blank slate" appearance allows the reader to more easily project his shifting characterization onto him from mysterious party host to the military man madly in love with Daisy to the ambitious farmboy James Gatzwhereas characters like Tom Buchanan and Myrtle are more stiffly characterized. Gatsby was born "James Gatz," the son of poor farmers, jay gatsby character analysis essay, in North Dakota. However, he was deeply ambitious and determined to be successful.
He changed his name to "Jay Gatsby" and learned the manners of the rich on the yacht of Dan Cody, a wealthy man who he saved from a destructive storm and ended up being employed by. However, although Cody intended to leave his fortune to Gatsby, it ended up being taken by Cody's ex-wife Ella Kaye, leaving Jay with the knowledge and manners of the upper class, but no money to back them up. Gatsby ended up enlisting in the military during World War Jay gatsby character analysis essay. He met Daisy in Louisville before he was shipped out to Europe.
In his uniform, there was no way for anyone to know he wasn't wealthy, and Daisy assumed he was due to his manners. He kept up this lie to keep up their romance, jay gatsby character analysis essay, and when he left she promised to wait for him. Gatsby fought in the War, gained a medal from Montenegro for valor, and was made an officer. After the war ended, he briefly attended Oxford University through a program for officers, but left after five months. By the time Gatsby returned to America, he learned that Daisy had married and became determined to win her back.
Through Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby got into shady business read: bootlegging, gambling to get rich. It worked, and Gatsby accrued a huge sum of money in just 3 years. He moved to West Egg, bought an extravagant mansion and a Rolls Royce, and started throwing lavish parties and building up a reputation, all in the hopes of meeting Daisy again. Luckily, an aspiring bond salesman named Nick Carraway moves in next door just as the novel begins.
Nick is Daisy's second cousin, and through that connection he is able to reunite with Daisy during the novel. To see how Gatsby's life fits into the biographies of the novel's other characters, check out our timeline.
Although Nick briefly glimpses Gatsby reaching out to Daisy's green light at the end of Chapter 1we don't properly meet Gatsby until Chapter 3. Gatsby has been throwing lavish parties, and he invites Nick Carraway to one. They meet, and Gatsby takes a liking to Nick, inviting him out on his hydroplane the next day. He also speaks to Jordan Baker in private, and reveals his past history with Daisy Buchanan.
In Chapter 4he spends more time with Nick, telling him about his service in WWI as well as a made-up story about his past as the only surviving member of a wealthy family. Later, he has Jordan explain Gatsby and Daisy's background in a bid to get Nick to help the pair reunite.
Through Jordan and Nick, Gatsby is thus able to meet with Daisy again and begins an affair with her in Chapter 5. Throughout all of this Gatsby continues to do business with Meyer Wolfsheim and run his own bootlegging "business," mainly based on the mysterious phone calls he's always taking. Rumors begin to swirl about where he got jay gatsby character analysis essay money. Tom Buchanan, in particular, is instantly suspicious of Gatsby when they meet in Chapter 6 and even more so after he and Daisy attend one of Gatsby's parties.
Daisy seems particularly unhappy and Gatsby frets. At the beginning of Chapter 7he jay gatsby character analysis essay throwing the parties, fires his current staff, and hires Wolfshiem's people instead, telling Nick he needs discreet people—this makes the affair easier, but also hints at Gatsby's criminal doings. In the climactic Manhattan confrontation with Tom and Daisy later in Chapter 7, Gatsby tries to get Daisy to admit she never loved Tom, and to leave him, but she doesn't.
Later in the same chapter, he and Daisy leave together to drive back to West Egg in Gatsby's distinctive yellow car. However, Daisy is driving and hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, who ran out into the road since she thought the car was Tom's. Gatsby resolves to take the blame for the incident and still believes that Daisy will leave Tom for him. During Chapter 8Gatsby confides in Nick about his past, the true story this time.
At the end of Chapter 8, Gatsby jay gatsby character analysis essay shot and killed by George Wilson, who believes Gatsby killed Myrtle and was the one sleeping with her. Meanwhile, Daisy and Tom have left town to avoid the repercussions of Myrtle's death. In Chapter 9Gatsby's funeral is sparsely attended, despite Nick's efforts to invite people. Gatsby's father does make an appearance, sharing some details about young Jay's early ambition and focus.
Nick leaves New York shortly after, jay gatsby character analysis essay, disenchanted with life on the east coast. Thus Gatsby's actual death has caused Nick's metaphorical death of leaving New York forever. Gatsby adopts this catchphrase, which was used among wealthy people in England and America at the time, to help build up his image as a man from old money, which is related to his frequent insistence he is "an Oxford man.
In this moment, jay gatsby character analysis essay, Nick begins to believe and appreciate Gatsby, and not just see him as a puffed-up fraud. Jay gatsby character analysis essay medal, to Nick, is hard proof jay gatsby character analysis essay Gatsby did, in fact, jay gatsby character analysis essay, have a successful career as an officer during the war and therefore that some of Gatsby's other claims might be true.
For the reader, the medal serves as questionable evidence that Gatsby really is an "extraordinary" man—isn't it a strange that Gatsby has to produce physical evidence to get Nick to buy his story? Imagine how strange it would be to carry around a physical token to show to strangers to prove your biggest achievement.
He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.
Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock. In Chapter 5, jay gatsby character analysis essay, the dream Gatsby has been jay gatsby character analysis essay towards for years—to meet and impress Daisy with his fabulous wealth—finally begins to come to fruition.
And so, for the first time, we see Gatsby's genuine emotions, rather than his carefully-constructed jay gatsby character analysis essay. Nick finds these emotions almost as beautiful and transformative as Gatsby's smile, though there's also the sense that this love could quickly veer off the rails: Gatsby is running down "like an overwound clock.
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. This is probably Gatsby's single most famous line. His insistence that he can repeat the past and recreate everything as it was in Louisville sums up his intense determination to win Daisy back at any cost. It also shows his naiveté and optimism, jay gatsby character analysis essay, even delusion, about what is possible in his life—an attitude which are increasingly at odds with the cynical portrait of the world painted by Nick Carraway.
This is the moment Gatsby lays his cards out on the table, so to speak—he risks everything to try and win over Daisy. His insistence that Daisy never loved Tom also reveals how Gatsby refuses to acknowledge Daisy could have changed or loved anyone else since they were together in Louisville, jay gatsby character analysis essay. This declaration, along with his earlier insistence that he can "repeat the past," creates an image of an overly optimistic, naïve person, despite his experiences in the war and as a bootlegger.
Especially since Daisy can't support this statement, saying that she loved both Tom and Gatsby, and Tom quickly seizes power over the situation by practically ordering Gatsby and Daisy to drive home together, Gatsby's confident insistence that Daisy has only ever loved him feels desperate, even delusional.
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 our arms farther. And one fine morning One of the most famous ending lines in modern literature, this quote is Nick's final analysis of Gatsby—someone who believed in "the green light, the orgastic future" that he could never really attain. Our last image of Gatsby is of a man who believed in a world and a future that was better than the one he found himself in—but you can read more about interpretations of the ending, both optimistic and pessimistic, in our guide to the end of the book, jay gatsby character analysis essay.
If you read The Great Gatsbyodds are you will have to write at least one paper that analyzes Gatsby as a character or connects him to a larger theme, like money, love, or the American Dream. To do this well, you should closely read Gatsby's key scenes meeting Daisy again in Chapter 5, the confrontation in the hotel in Chapter 7, his decision to take the blame in Chapter 8 along with his background, revealed over Chapters 6, 8, and 9, jay gatsby character analysis essay.
By understanding both Gatsby's past and his present in the novel, you can write about him confidently despite his many-layered personality. It can be helpful to compare Gatsby to other characters, because it can make it easier to understand his attitude and motivations. Nick's cynical nature makes Gatsby's naiveté and optimism readily apparent, for example. You should also consider how Gatsby's interaction with the book's famous symbols especially the green light reveal aspects of his character.
Remember that there are many valid ways to interpret Gatsby, as he is a very complex, mysterious character. As long as you back up your arguments with evidence from the book you can connect Gatsby to various big-picture themes and ideas. We will explore that in action below with some common essay topics about Gatsby.
I think the best way to tackle this question is to ask " why is Gatsby called great " or " who thinks Gatsby is great? Remember that the book is narrated by Nick Carraway, and all of our impressions of the characters come from his point of view. So the real question is "why does Nick Carraway think Gatsby is great? And the answer to that comes from Gatsby's outlook and hope, not his money or extravagance, which are in fact everything that Nick claims to despise.
Nick admires Gatsby due to his optimism, how he shapes his own life, and how doggedly he believes in his dream, despite the cruel realities of s America.
Like Pale Gold - The Great Gatsby Part 1: Crash Course English Literature #4
, time: 11:43The Great Gatsby: Character Analysis Essay - Words
Character Analysis Jay Gatsby Like Nick, Gatsby comes from the Midwest (North Dakota, although his father later comes from Minnesota). Early in the book, he is established as a dreamer who is charming, gracious, and a bit mysterious Jay Gatsby once named ‘James Gatz’ yet later on transformed it to ‘Jay Gatsby’. He is a country cultivate kid experiencing childhood in North Dakota without associations, cash, or education, Jimmy Gatz had an plan: he would get away from his conditions and become famous. What’s more, fortunately, his father has spared his plan Jay Gatsby Character Analysis If you read The Great Gatsby, odds are you will have to write at least one paper that analyzes Gatsby as a character or connects him to a larger theme, like money, love, or the American Dream
No comments:
Post a Comment