The Great Gatsby Essay

Submitted By sereenehijazi
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Sereene Hijazi
Ms. Kovick/Ms.Polk
LA 6
1st hour
April, 28th, 2013

Loneliness in The Great Gatsby

Loneliness can affect people in different ways, some people are used to being lonely while others refuse to accept being alone and won’t stop searching until they find that one person to share everything with. In the novel The Great Gatsby the characters live in a world where they think money is everything. If you have money you must be happy when in reality almost every single character is lonely and unhappy with his or her life. The Great Gatsby basically teaches one that no matter how much money you have, at the end of the day one can’t be happy alone.

The main character Gatsby, seems to have it all he has the fabulous house, the over the top parties, extravagant cars, and doesn’t seem to be missing anything in his life, until one finds out that there is a emptiness inside him which plays a huge part in his life and unhappiness. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling” (26). Nick saw Gatsby doing this and one can’t help but think this line shows a lot of loneliness because what is Gatsby reaching out for? One can assume that there is something within his reach but can’t quite grasp it. Even though Gatsby has this beautiful house and ideal life, his loneliness outweighs it all and makes everything he has seem worthless.

Almost every character in this book is wealthy, or comes from a wealthy family yet every character seems unhappy than the last. Unfortunately Gatsby is not the only lonely character in this novel. Nick also is very lonely and isolated, “No I just remembered that today’s my birthday “(142). Nick randomly remembers that it had been his birthday, which is somewhat sad. Usually people celebrate their birthday with friends and family, people who care about them, whereas Nick is celebrating his by watching Gatsby and Nick fight over Daisy. This line shows one that no one even knew it was Nick’s birthday and no one seemed to care. “I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table-the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone” (46). Basically in this sentence Nick is admitting that he is purposeless and alone, which is true. Throughout the whole novel Nick judges everyone he meets and talks as if he is better than everyone when he is really just like them. Even if Nick isn’t the one directly involved in all the characters issues, he always has something to say about them which show that he is so lonely and dissatisfied with his own life, he feels the need to judge others and the way that they chose to live.

Everyone in the Great Gatsby is lonely in his or her own way, whether he or she admits it or not. One could say that the only reason the characters are alone is because they don’t ever seem satisfied. Tom for example is married to daisy who is beautiful, kind and the mother of his child, yet that is not enough for him so he cheats on Daisy with Myrtle who is very low-class and different from Toms social class. “Toms got some woman in New York” (19). One can’t help but feel bad for Daisy, even though she eventually does the same thing to him with Gatsby. Neither Tom nor Daisy is happy with their marriage, and because they feel lonely and unloved by one another they turn to cheating. “Well she was less than an hour old and Tom was
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