The Great Gatsby Reality Analysis

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In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald challenges the illusion of fantasy with a loss of reality by using the main character, Gatsby, to produce the ability to hope, but the expectations of hope have the unforeseen feeling of disappointment which can create confusion between reality and fantasy when one finds comfort in fantasy over reality. Gatsby’s life is a hope for the past as he desires to obtain his previous relationship with Daisy, but envisioning his relationship in the present and future begin to show the hopelessness of dreaming as one loses reality. Hope denies the truth of reality as the ability to hope corrupts the realization of one’s dream. One can always have the capability to hope, and this hopefulness when indulged in moderation …show more content…
As Nick, the narrator, is on his way back to his house he notices Jay Gatsby in “unquiet darkness” (21) as Gatsby “stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way...” (20). Nick “involuntarily glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock”(21). Jay Gatsby’s strange arm gestures signify his dream, which is Daisy, but, his dream leads to disappointment since the green light is “minute and far away” (21) making his dream unattainable. However, Jay Gatsby, full of hope, wants to rekindle the love he had for Daisy with the help of Nick, Daisy’s cousin, in order to make his life everything he dreamed of, which is wealth in the pursuance of Daisy. As Jay Gatsby prepares for Daisy he wants to make everything look perfect so he decides to get Nick’s grass cut; as they “both looked at the grass-there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse at his began” (82). Jay Gatsby needs Nick’s house to look presentable for Daisy in order to please her and Gatsby shows that it is not only his dream to have her but, also to please her as he “revalues everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes”(91). Daisy is overjoyed and sufficiently pleased with his wealth, as she looks around in awe she …show more content…
As Jay Gatsby tries to recreate the past he wants “nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say, I never loved you” (109). But, Jay Gatsby does not realize that, that sentence would have “obliterated four years” (109) of her life; he just wants to “go back to Louisville and be married from her house-just as if it were five years ago” (109). As the thought of Gatsby’s and Daisy’s future arrives the discussion between Tom and Jay Gatsby at the hotel becomes uncomfortable as Jay Gatsby says, “Your wife doesn’t love you...she never loved you. She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me” (132). Daisy cries “I love you now-isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past. I did love him once- but I loved you too” (132). Immediately after Daisy’s confession Jay Gatsby is shocked; “the words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby” (132) leaving him broken. As Tom asks them to go home Daisy hits Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson but, was having an affair with Tom, with Jay Gatsby’s car as she comes running out “into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting” (137) because, she does not like her restricting husband. Unfortunately, Myrtle died and George Wilson found out from Tom that it was Jay Gatsby’s car who hit her but; it was actually Daisy who was driving and hit Myrtle. However, Wilson did not
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