The Great Gatsby: Accepting the Love We Think We Deserve

Anna Selchow

Accepting the Love We Think We Deserve

Love is infinite and never synonymous to money. Fitzgerald shows how sad life can be if one becomes focused on money, status, and forgets to accept that time can change people. In the novel the Great Gatsby, Gatsby was the only character who believed in love. Gatsby was so blinded by his idea of love he failed to realize the girl of his dreams, Daisy, only represented material wealth and social class.

Gatsby had a deep refusal to accept the impossibility of reversing time. Gatsby believed he could replicate the summer he spent with Daisy five years before by reinventing himself through wealth and status. He could not believe his relationship with Daisy would never be the same as years before. “Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dream—not through her own fault, but because of the  colossal vitality of his illusion.” When Gatsby went off to war his love for her grew stronger through his imagination. Sadly, Daisy changed over time. But Gatsby’s idea about their relationship was so extensive, even though she was married and they were having an affair, he assumed that she shared his vision of their future together. Nick and Gatsby had this conversation at one of Gatsby’s “gaudy” parties. Nick told Gatsby you cannot repeat the past but Gatsby replied confidently, “Can’t repeat the past?... why of course you can!”. Not only did Gatsby want to repeat the past; he wanted to exterminate all the years in which his dream of love lost its reality. Daisy had been Gatsby’s obsession for the past five years, and his deep love for her prevented him from separating the past from the present. He was blinded by his idea of love that he could not see Daisy represented both material success and the corruption wealth can bring. Although she appears to be the perfect girl to Gatsby, she has become self-centered and cold at heart like her cold, hard cash.

Gatsby’s dream of love with Daisy has become corrupted by the culture and wealth of the people he surrounds himself with. Gatsby was a man of “new money” and his romantic view of wealth had not prepared him for the self-interested, snobbish, falsified group of people with which he has come to associate. Gatsby was lost in his desire for Daisy that he failed to realize she was a tainted wealthy elite. Losing Daisy to her husband Tom, Gatsby felt he had to reinvent himself to win her affections back and by being the rich man her parents would have approved of. It was all for what he thought was love. Gatsby never cared for his mansion, car, or luxuries. “He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses. I don’t mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same strata as herself – that he was fully able to take care of her”. Gatsby made all of his “phantom millions” for Daisy to prove not only to Daisy but to himself that his background and past life of poverty never existed. Fitzgerald used the adjective “phantom” to describe Gatsby’s money because it haunted him it Reminded him that although he had money and luxuries he still did not have Daisy.

The alter ego Gatsby created along with his wealth and luxuries were all for his infatuation with Daisy. Gatsby was smart and knew to regain Daisy’s love he had to prove it through materials and money. Showing off his mansion to Daisy, Gatsby starts taking out piles and piles of flamboyant shirts to provide evidence of his “class.” Daisy saw the shirts and started crying saying, “it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before”. By seeing Gatsby’s brightly colored shirts Daisy realized he was trying to win her love back through status and wealth. All Gatsby understood and wanted was Daisy’s love. Daisy crying over his shirts must mean she regretted her marriage to Tom and she could have had his love instead of Tom’s money.