Gatsby and His Class Dream

Gatsby's life was dedicated to his own version of the American dream: Daisy. Gatsby claims that he has loved Daisy ever since he met her. In the book, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy's love symbolizes an object of Gatsby's obsession for success and his idea of a perfect life. Fitzgerald acknowledges how people were judged based on materialistic belongings in the 1920s. The idea of desiring to live a rich life was planted in young Gatsby's mind.

Gatsby was not always rich. When he was younger, he lived a poor life on a farm in North Dakota. Nick described Gatsby's parents as 'shiftless and unsuccessful farm people-his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all' (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby's parents were not rich and he was ashamed of where he came from and chose to not inform many people of his past. Instead, he lied about his old life. Gatsby came up with a new name because he was not fond of the name James Gatz'.

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When Gatsby met Dan Cody on his yacht, he got closer to his dream of becoming rich. To the younger Gatsby, 'that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world' (100). At that moment, Gatsby realized that he wanted to one day, be able to have enough money to own a boat of his own. Dan Cody inspired him to become rich. While Gatsby was on his mission to become successful, he met Daisy. Gatsby thought that she would be in his life forever and 'he knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God' (110).

Gatsby believed that he made a commitment to her when he kissed her. He believed that since she was in the original plan of his future, he had to end up with Daisy. Gatsby had been fixated on Daisy for a very long time.

When Gatsby and Daisy first met, she did not know that he was poor and once she found out, things between them did not work out. After five years of not seeing Daisy, Gatsby is still in love with her. Daisy has started a new life in those five years and has moved on from Gatsby. She got married to Tom Buchanan and had a little girl. Gatsby went through an abundance of trouble trying to restore the love he once had with her. Gatsby barely even knew Daisy at this point because of how much has changed, in both of their lives, over the past five years. While Gatsby was giving Daisy a tour of his house, he said to her, 'Here's a lot of clippings-about you' (93). Gatsby had to have been paying close attention to Daisy's life in order to collect these clippings of her, whereas Daisy had not even thought about Gatsby in five years until she heard his name. While at lunch, Jordan said to Nick, 'Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay' (78). Gatsby purchased his house so close to Daisy's with the plan that he would be throwing extravagant parties. He was hoping that since he was so close to Daisy, that would one day show up to a party. He was so hung up on Daisy that he bought a 17 million dollar house as a way to reconnect with her.

Daisy is more of an embodiment of Gatsby's desire to finally be able to fulfill his dreams than she is a real woman. Gatsby has made it clear that he loves Daisy and that he wants her to leave her life behind and begin a new one with him. Gatsby was talking to Nick about how fond he was of Daisy when he mentioned that 'her voice is full of money' (120). This indicates that Gatsby has an attraction to money because he associates it with Daisy. Many times throughout the book, he makes relations between Daisy and wealth. Gatsby also connects Daisy with the color green which commonly signifies money. Nick had come home one night and saw Gatsby stretching his arms out and looking towards 'nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might've been at the end of a dock' (21). This is a light on a dock at Daisy's home across the bay. Gatsby was stretching his arms out towards wealth which, to him, was represented by Daisy. Gatsby's reasons for being in love with Daisy are because of his devotion to achieving his dream of being rich and successful. When young Gatsby first met Dan Cody, he developed a longing for wanting to live a rich life. Gatsby focused his life on Daisy for a very long time and she was viewed as an object for Gatsby to posses, rather than as a person. Even though Gatsby was one of the richest people in the story, he did not think that he reached his goal until he had Daisy.