Theme Of Escape In The Great Gatsby

The Hardest Person to Escape is Yourself “The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for,” as Tucker Max said. This is played out nowhere so well as in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Gatsby’s poor and humble beginnings led to his internal belief that the only way he would ever be worthy of respect would be to change his status within society. When he fell in love and then lost his first love, this belief became even more internalized as he believed the only way he would ever be worthy of this love would be to completely alter his identity and become someone else entirely. He cheats his way to achieving everything he ever wished for, but this does not fulfill him, and ultimately …show more content…
Prohibition opened the door to bootlegging and increased organized crime, but rather than acknowledging the social ills of such a situation, America jumped in with both feet, compensating for its trauma with exuberant parties and drinking away the horror in illegal speakeasies. As New York was transformed by the Jazz Age, Gatsby returned and found infinite opportunity to build his own vast wealth bootlegging and building connections with organized crime syndicates. Driven by his obsession with winning Daisy back, Gatsby’s obsession with wealth grew even more menacing. He did not hesitate to make ever growing sums of money by lying, cheating, and stealing. Gatsby luxuriated in his new-found celebrity status, amassing legendary wealth, while behaving recklessly, his only care in the world being how he could buy Daisy back. Gatsby’s legendary, theatrical celebrity masked the pathetic man underneath who lacked any real values and could not see any worth in himself outside of his external persona and his …show more content…
Gatsby threw grand parties, all in hopes that these celebrations would attract Daisy, so he might convince her he was finally worth her love and attention. When she finally attends, Gatsby has internalized his delusion to such an extent that he is shocked that Daisy does not immediately leave her husband and marry him instead. Gatsby spent so many years despising poverty, amassing wealth, convinced that Daisy will certainly come back to him once he can prove his worthiness that he is floored when she does not immediately comply. He seems to believe she lacks common sense. Gatsby invested too much in his obsession to simply be rejected and then move on with his life. He was too far gone, too convinced of his own narrative, to entrenched in his false identity. He was unable to give up his dream that he might become someone who matters if he only becomes rich and legendary enough to win Daisy