Great Gatsby

Hobie Rich

2nd period

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.." This is the opinion of Jane Austen, but is this statement really true? In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows us how for one man, Jay Gatsby, money can buy friends, but not love. Examples throughout the story support the fact that Daisy could never be a part of Gatsby's overall dream. David F. Trask notes that "she (Daisy) could never become a legitimate actualization of Gatsby's illegitimate dream." Did Gatsby truly thrive for Daisy's forever-love, or was she just another possession, or piece, to the puzzle of Gatsby's lifelong dream of success? Gatsby began his pursuit of goodness and beauty when he changed his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby.

During the early stages of the book we often hear of Nick's experiences at Gatsby's glamorous parties attended by hundreds. Early in the book Nick said, "I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People weren't invited--they went there." (Fitzgerald 45) Once at these parties the people acted as if they had been friends with Gatsby for years. Friendship is an easy thing to fake when free luxuries, such as freshly squeezed orange juice, are being presented to you in an atmosphere such as Gatsby's recherchй mansion. Few of Gatsby's friends truly knew him, they just simply showed up at his home and became so-called "companions."

A true friend would be present through the good and the bad times of their chum's life, and Gatsby deffinetly hit a bad time when he was wrongfully murdered, but yet very few of the people who claimed to be close to Gatsby during the good times bothered to make an appearance at his funeral. This lack of people is best described by Nick towards the end of the book. "About five o'clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate--first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and I in the limousine,and, a little later, four or five servants and the postman from West Egg in Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby's books in the library one night three months before.

I'd never seen him since then. I don't know how he knew about the funeral or even his name."

After thinking that he had many friends and love, only nine people other than the minister were present at the funeral. I find it funny how during the prosperous times Gatsby was so popular with other folks, but once his death came about, very few claimed even to be associated with the man. The