Analysis of the Character Gatsby Through the Activities He Did - Research Paper Example

The Great Gatsby In writing a work of literature, of different materials develop characters that help them to present their themes to readers so that they can speak to them. Although introduced late in the story, the character Gatsby in the Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby has made a lot of contribution and the story ends to revolve around him. The character Gatsby has made every effort to impact situations in the society by his actions and led him to achieve so much popularity among people. Fitzgerald has used the character Gatsby to develop the different themes in the novel and to represent things that are illegal in the society in which they lived (Bloom and Hobby 25). The character Gatsby has contributed to the plot of the novel and through his interaction with others, he has helped the author develop some theme and develop some character traits of focus, determination and passion. This work will carry out the analysis of the character Gatsby through the activities he did in the development of the plot of Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. The novel The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one in which characters present the different themes that are relevant to the life of the people within the society of the Americans after the World War I. The novel has various characters that interacted in diverse ways to elaborate the kind of life people lived and the things that happened within the society at that time which affected the relationship between them. The presentation of the characters in the novel helps a reader to criticize some activities that happened in the society and condemn them so that they are not repeated in another time in the course of the life of the people. One of the characters, Jay Gatsby is developed from a small age to the time he died, during which period he did different things in the society. Gatsby had impacted different people with whom he interacted up to the time of his death, some of whom were positively and others negatively (Johnson 137). Gatsby as a child Jay Gatsby lived in North Dakota with his parents and got some time to interact with his father who gave him advices on how he could interact with different people, because they were different and had diverse backgrounds. As a young boy, Gatsby learnt to be a humble young man who did not love to criticize other people on any basis regardless of their status in the society or any foolish things they did. His father had taught him that everyone has different opportunities that determine their various courses of action in their relationship with other people. He always acknowledged different people in their differences and went about his activities in very respectable ways and, without talking much while in many groups of people. With time, Gatsby started to hate poverty and that shaped his character and motivation to avoid it at all the cost by his great determination to make money to come out of it and become rich (Lazar, Karlan and Salter 71). In his small age, he learnt to be a young man who was temperate and who could hardly involve himself with some risky things that could cause him to lose respect and honor from other people. For this reason, many people of his age envied his kind of life because whatever he would avoid would turn to cause trouble to those people who refused to heed to his advice to refrain from such. For this reason, he appeared a very composed young man who could not trigger any form of commotion among his age mates and other people in his environment. He grew to be an adorable likeable and young boy in the midst of his friends and could rarely be linked to evil activities. He focused on improving his life so that he can avoid circumstances that could lead him to a poor life and this prepared him to school life in the college where he went in his early youth age, though it was for a short time and then he left (Bloom 93). Gatsby as a youth As a young man, Gatsby interacted with many people and did various things that he that were targeted to contribute to his goal of becoming a rich man in his future. Because of this, he determined to live a fabulous life where he would have a lot of wealth and own very many things that would make him a recognizable person in the world. His quest to be a great man and get great fortunes increased when he met Daisy Buchanan as a young man who served in the military before he went to the World War I. Gatsby promised Daisy that he would marry her on return but that was not to happen because after that, he went to study in Oxford only to find her already married to another man, Tom Buchanan. He had cheated Daisy about his background by making her to perceive it as a place of a lot of riches which was far from the truth because their family was not established financially. As result of this he worked hard to prove himself to the girl he loved and to ensure her hope to marry him were alive and could help him to change her mind and marry him (Avsenak 42). On realizing that Daisy married Buchanan, Gatsby determined to win her back to himself by engaging himself in different activities that were illegal and unacceptable just to have money that would help him to place him in a high social class. His quest to be a great man came again when he realized that he could not stay in St Olaf College where he stayed for only two weeks citing unsustainable pay that he was receiving as a janitor which would give him money to pay for his tuition. His quest to be wealthy drove him to seek financial power by fishing for salmon and digging for clams before he got a job to work for a rich man, Cody who would pay him for taking care of him when he drank (Wyly 15-17). Generally, in his time as a young man with great quest to be rich, Gatsby discovered his identity about this age and each time he committed his effort to establishing his life as a rich man. When he realized his identity, he theorized his life to accomplish all the things he wanted to become so that he could be recognized in the world as a rich man which led him to take very different steps to realize them. His education in Oxford was driven by his quest to become a great man in the society and by making himself known and increasing his opportunity to exploit the world to get what he wanted, massive wealth. Another thing that was motivated by need to achieve monetary power was the dropping from St. Olaf College where he realized as a janitor, he was not getting enough money to achieve his dreams. The author depicts this man as a much focused person who could not be stopped by anything in anything he wanted to achieve in his life and around him. His character was one which when he determined to achieve a goal, he would work for it until he accomplished it and became what he wanted regardless of the challenges he would encounter in his life or the length of time it would take him to achieve. This character trait of Gatsby made him to advance to do different activities including his engagement in the different illegal distribution of illicit alcohol to different places in New York and West Egg. His quest to become wealthy can be traced from his childhood where he despised poverty and could not imagine himself as a poor man at any time in his life and determined to avoid all issues that would pre-expose him to it. In his youth, he also changed his name from James Gatz to great Jay Gatsby who was a person of great wealth and his perception about his life was of a man that was great enough to attain all things that he wanted (Komljenovic?, Svetec and Smole-Korpar 43). His determination to be rich drove him to start a venture of distributing alcohol which made him to rise in class among residents and bought very many things like a car and a mansion. Gatsby rose to be a rich man through his business and avoided the poverty that he had condemned for long and with which he never liked to associate and got to be recognized by very many people in New York and West Egg town (Tanner 38). Gatsby as a rich man In the process of development, the Gatsby relocated to West Egg from the rural residence of North Dakota, where he was born and lived in much of his childhood. That was facilitated by his rise in monetary power although it was related to distribution of alcohol, which was not acceptable according to the cultures of the people in the society in which he lived. He established himself in the business making him to amass a lot of money that enabled him to come up with many things in his life and that impacted very many people. Gatsby bought a prestigious mansion at West Egg and established his life in that area and he got great recognition from different people and drew their interests in him. In some time, news reporters visited him to interview him because his name was very popular in New York as one of the richest people around that area. Gatsby was motivated by his quest to win Daisy Buchanan to himself and regain the love that he lost when she got married to Tom Buchanan who lived in the place. He could do all he could to have everyone recognize him and to outdo Tom Buchanan and bring instability in their marriage so that breakage would favor his bid to win Daisy. The mansion he bought established him as a very successful young man in the locality of West Egg and Gatsby was sure that very many people were recognizing his monetary power which had risen within a short moment. The process came to establish his trait as a focused man who could do all things to win the favor of the people he wanted to impress and was aimed at proving to Daisy that he was rich as he had told her in the past when he cheated her of his background (Avsenak 44). Gatsby lived an extravagant live where he would prepare parties for all his friends each weekend and this led him to attract the interest of the people in the West Egg and New York. The parties were not only focused to bring people together and have them recognize that he was wealthy but it was a targeted move to bring Daisy to his fold and woo her to marry him. Daisy was influenced to attend the parties and they started a relationship that advanced because they started moving out together with Gatsby and on the course. However, many people were objected to the developing relationship between the two, Daisy and Gatsby and they criticized it and discouraged them from it but this never happened. The increased commitment to each other was seen when Daisy caused a an accident with Gatsby’s car and Gatsby was ready to defend her by claiming that he was the one who was driving the vehicle before the accident occurred. This outraged Buchanan to a point that he planned and killed Gatsby before killing himself although he also was associated with infidelity with a woman in New York (Bloom and Hobby 25). The development of the character Gatsby by the Fitzgerald has been used to develop different character traits of determination, commitment and focus which were witnessed in his different activities. He has influenced the circumstances of the novel by engaging in different activities that were targeted to establish himself as a rich wealthy many in his generation. Works Cited Avsenak, Vanja. “Name Etymology and Its Symbolic Value in Francis Scott Fitzgerald's ‘The Great Gatsby’.” Acta Neophilologica. Vol 36 Issue 1, (2003): 41-48. Print. Bloom, Harold, and Blake Hobby. The American Dream. New York, NY: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. Print. Bloom, Harold. The Great Gatsby. New York: Infobase Pub, 2006. Print. Johnson, Claudia. Class Conflict in F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Print. Komljenovic?, Janja, Danica Svetec and Irena Smole-Korpar. Comparison of Literary Characters and Francis Scott Fitzgerald's Life in His Two Novels : the Beautiful and Damned, the Great Gatsby: Raziskovalna Naloga. Maribor: s.n., 2000. Print. Lazar, Allan, Dan Karlan and Jeremy Salter. The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History. New York: Harper, 2006. Print. Tanner, Barney. Joycean Elements in F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby. Bethesda, MD: Academica Press, 2007. Print. Wyly, Michael J. Understanding the Great Gatsby. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 2002. Print. Read More