Analysis Of The Tragic Hero In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

According to Aristotle, one must have a number of characteristics in order to identify as a tragic hero. These characteristics include having a noble stature, a tragic flaw, undeserved misfortune, a moment of self-discovery, and a similarity to the reader. In the book “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby contains most of these characteristics and so is portrayed as a Tragic Hero.
Gatsby was truly a noble character. What really gave him this title was his determination in life. “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind?” His determination helped him turn his life around and accomplish a certain stature in society. Back in the jazz age, …show more content…
At the end of the day everything he ever achieved and did was in hopes of winning back the heart of the materialistic Daisy. What he did not see though, is that he loved Daisy as he saw her, not as she really was. He saw Daisy as perfect and worthy of all that he’s done but in reality she turned out to be quite undeserving of his worship and affections. She proves through her actions that she is more pathetic rather than honorable. When she says “Sophisticated-God I’m sophisticated” (18), she is pretty much stating the opposite of what she really is. The reader observes some irony when reading this, knowing that what she truly is, is selfish, pathetic, and superficial. Gatsby’s dream is based on the idea that the past can be repeated “can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” (111), and the belief that enough money can determine your fate. He thus dedicates his life to making a huge amount of money to be worthy of Daisy, in order to re-write the past and have her for his own. During the many years that Gatsby spends working towards this goal, he always remembers Daisy as she was the last time he saw her; perfect. As he tries to make his dream a reality, things don’t go as according to plan. It is Daisy in the end that cannot live up to Gatsby’s ideals, yet Gatsby is unable to realise this. Gatsby’s downfall was choosing Daisy to be his life-long goal. Daisy is truly unworthy of …show more content…
Gatsby remained in denial about Daisy not being in love with him and with the fact that you cannot re-live the past. This is the only characteristic that brings into question if he is truly a tragic hero. He lacked self-discovery, but held on to the dream he spent his whole life working towards. He dies with faith, waiting for the improbable phone-call from Daisy to arrive. He still holds faith in Daisy, even though his whole dream is shattered to pieces right in front of him. By the end of the book, Nick finally earns respect towards Gatsby and for the first time passes judgment upon him. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154). We can trust that Nick’s opinion is the truth, because by the end of the book he is the only level-headed character left. There is honour in Gatsby’s dream. He never lost faith in it and it he pursued it with such passion and dedication that in the end he was an admirable character. By the end of the book, Nick “became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes-afresh, green breast of the new world” (182). What he describes here is the New World as Dutch sailors would have seen it. It is where the American Dream started, giving people unlimited hope for something that was rather improbable. Gatsby in the same way, looked at his dream with an infinite amount of hope. In the beginning of the book, Gatsby stretched out his arms to touch the green light