Poverty In The Great Gatsby

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The novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald titled The Great Gatsby is a story about a young man named James Gatz formally known later as Jay Gatsby and his pursuits of the American Dream. Previous to World War One, the American Dream represented individualism, self-definition and the pursuit of happiness. However in the 1920s, the noble values became corrupted as the Nation's newfound fortune in stocks and the people's desires for wealth and aimless pleasures redirected lifestyles. It was a time where people from any background could potentially strike it rich and it became the opportunity James fancied. Before being known as the illusive and affluent Jay Gatsby, he started off as the son of a dirt poor German American family in North Dakota. Disgusted by his path of poverty, James met Dan Cody who taught James the ways of the wealthy which coaxed James to change his name to the infamous Jay Gatsby. Later as the ominous threat of war verged, he met the love of his life--Daisy Fay. To him, she …show more content…
While for others, it inspires and influences them throughout life. Gatsby fitted both situations. In an attempt to redefine himself, Gatsby would overcome poverty and the law, and would even challenge time itself. Through the substantial use of symbolism, one can view Gatsby’s determined ambition to make his dream a reality. Daisy Fay, the love of his life became his dream, and Gatsby’s relentlessness to obtain her became his life. Not knowing that Daisy doesn't love him anymore, he continued to pursue her in hopes of revitalizing each other's past relations. Ultimately, like any other unrealistic American Dream, Gatsby’s desires were unattainable. His connections with his past create the person he wanted to become, but for his dream required Daisy’s love, something that he cannot recreate from the past. Nevertheless this did not cease his determination, as one can ask him, “Can [you] repeat the past?…Why of course you
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