Jay Gatsby's Life

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In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we see how the lives of certain individuals are altered by their attempt to secure the satisfaction of self-fulfillment. We see Jay Gatsby, or James Gatz’ life drastically change when his ambition and willingness to hope, exceeds his ability to accept reality. Through his journey to fulfill financial and romantical success Gatsby becomes a different man, a man in which simultaneously he both loves and dreads. Although Gatsby does everything in his power to change what has already been set in stone, he learns that as his version of an idealistic society might stay constant; another’s journey to fulfillment and self-purpose can be forever changing.

Gatsby’s life has been encouraged by his willingness …show more content…
From a young age, James Gatz realised that he was not destined for a life of a farmer in North Dakota, but as a man that would change and influence the world in ways not seen before. For Gatsby, the hope that a better life could be achievable was all too consuming, for him to become the man he set out to be he could not be recognized as James Gatz but as a new man; a man that could be both respected and feared. "His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people — his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God . . . and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” (6.104). From this, we are able to see the weakness in the man who has been worshipped throughout the novel, as we see a human side of Gatsby we now are able to relate to his struggle and his ability to fight and move forward as a person. For Gatsby to achieve self-fulfillment he must be able to ensure that his past is removed completely from both his present and his future. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Juxtaposition to show the different respects and lifestyles people such as Gatsby, who have to work for their money and reputation to the respects and lifestyles people such as Tom and Daisy who have inherited vast amounts of money. As we see the two lifestyles clash we begin to question the validity of Gatsby’s dreams now that he himself has been witness to such conceded and careless people. The novel, which theme focuses primarily on Gatsby achieving what he has either lost or been deprived of also begins to
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