Daisy's Dream In The Great Gatsby

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Despite Gatsby’s sense of conviction and his rise to a position of wealth, Fitzgerald stresses the impracticality of his dream of winning Daisy’s heart. To Gatsby, the need to be with Daisy goes deeper than his love for her. She represents everything, the glamour, the influence, and the elite position in society that motivated Gatsby to cast off the name Jay Gatz and denounce his Midwestern roots. Ironically, the name Gatz is one of the main roadblocks in making his dream a reality. No matter how far Gatsby distances himself from his past or how much money he makes, the fact that Gatsby has to actually earn his money excludes him from the “old money” society whose wealth has been in their family for generations. After attending one of Gatsby’s …show more content…
Though Tom is unfaithful and cannot provide the love that Gatsby can, Daisy will stay with Tom because they have their image of the perfect, affluent American family to preserve for others to emulate. Literary critic Lionel Trilling comments on the obstacles to Gatsby’s dreams: “For Gatsby, divided between power and dream, comes inevitably to stand for America itself. Ours is the only nation to pride itself upon a dream and gives its name to one, ‘the American dream.’ … To the world it is anomalous in America, just as in the novel it is anomalous to Gatsby, that so much raw power should be haunted by envisioned romance” (251-252). Trilling’s argument highlights the paradox of Jay Gatsby’s aspirations for a rise in society; Gatsby achieves the financial success that typifies the traditional template of the self-made man, but cannot obtain his additional dream of the power and romance that he feels should accompany his new status. Part of Gatsby’s allure is that the material aspect of the self-made man is not what drives him in his search for his own American

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