How Does Fitzgerald Present Love In The Great Gatsby

Improved Essays
Love is a basic human ability and desire that can be easily be easily overridden in the midst of the lusting for wealth and social status. This disheartening concept is brought to life by Fitzgerald in his book The Great Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Carraway, goes to New York in the spring of 1922 in hopes of procuring his fortune has a bond man. He rents a small house in West Egg. His mysterious neighbor is known for his extravagant wild parties and is love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy lives in East Egg and is married to Tom Buchanan. Nick reuinutes Gatsby with his past love, Daisy, and she readily begins an affair. Incapable of fulfilling Gatsby’s dreams of running away from him, an argument begins between her, Tom and Gatsby. In a moment of anger, Daisy hits and kills Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, …show more content…
When Daisy is taking a house tour of Gatsby's house after being reunited with him, she is over taken with awe, because of Gatsby’s immense wealth. As Gatsby throws expensive shirts out of his closet as a show for Daisy, she begins to cry. “‘They're such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds, ‘It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful shirts’”( Fitzgerald 92). This reaction implies that Daisy has an overwhelming desire for extravagance in every aspect of her life. Further strengthening this, is Daisy’s choice of husband. After the war, five years prior to the current events in the book, Daisy chose to marry Tom Buchanan for his money after receiving word that Gatsby is penniless despite claiming to to love him. Moreover, when she finds Gatsby to have acquired quite the fortune, she once again declares love to him. With this information at hand, it is inferred that Daisy’s utmost desire for a lavish lifestyle has corrupted her leaving her shallow, unable to love and never is truly

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Gatsby’s love, Daisy, is trapped in a world of materialism due to the highly materialistic society of 1920’s America. This money-minded society is a result of the abundance of wealth due to the economic boom after WWI, the rapid wealth creation from bootlegging due to prohibition, and the extravagant and unrestrained lifestyles of wealthy New York. The character Daisy Buchanan represents this materialistic society, and thus her love is centred on materialism. “It makes me so sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful clothes before” By pairing “beautiful shirts” and “sad”, Daisy ironically exposes her mistake in marrying Tom instead of Gatsby. This expresses her highly materialistic and thus conditional love for Gatsby.…

    • 1396 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy is revealed as a character corrupted by wealth in a power struggle against her husband, Tom Buchanan, in a marriage which she is perfectly content to be a part of. While the marriage between Daisy and Tom is corrupt as whole, Daisy is by far the greatest contributor of the corruption, even as it remains a secret to the characters until the novel’s end. During the first half of the story, the average reader will begin to hate Tom for his bigotry and arrogance and hope for Daisy to leave Tom, and when Gatsby appears in Daisy’s life again to regain her love, everything seems to set in place for a happy ending between Daisy and Gatsby. However, Daisy goes on to demonstrate throughout later chapters…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Problematic Love The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest novels with the style of the 1920s. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway who tells the story of his time in New York. During his time in New York, Nick sees the corruptions of the wealthy. He helps with the corruption of Jay Gatsby who wants to be with Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan.…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Great Gatsby Essentialism

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Love, an intense feeling that can create beautiful things or destroy the world. For some, love is a fantasy that may never be realized. For others, love fuels them throughout their day giving them life and filling them with a joy that no other can imagine. It can bring families together or tear them apart. However, the one true fact about love, is that it is different for everyone.…

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Many suffer from the consequences of their own actions, however it’s not uncommon that one may carry the burden of another’s mistakes. Unfortunately, this is flawlessly displayed in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. Throughout the entirety of the novel, knowingly so Daisy continues to let her irresponsible decisions hurt the ones closest to her. Daisy Buchanan is a self-absorbed vacuous socialite whose decisions lead to the destruction of Gatsby, Myrtle, and Tom. Through murder, heartbreak and lies Daisy destroys others.…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Instead she married the wealthiest man that she could find, Tom Buchanan, so that she would be safe. When Daisy meets Gatsby again she questions whether or not she would be happier with Gatsby but she realized that, “She is unable to leave Tom because the Buchanan name is too valuable. At the same time, Gatsby 's own wealth dazzles her as seen when his vast collection of shirts provides the catalyst for her emotional response to their reunion.” (Morgan). Not only was Tom Buchanan a good person to be married to, but Daisy felt as though the Buchanan name itself was too valuable to leave.…

    • 1579 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Because Tom spends most of his time in New York “working”, Daisy feels like there is a part of her missing. To fill this hole, she starts cheating on Tom with Gatsby, who she used to love. Their love never truly went away and when they are reunited, the sparks fly again. Gatsby finds out that Daisy did not wait for him while he was at war because she found out he was not rich and wanted more. Gatsby knows Daisy married Tom just for his money and thinks that she never truly loved him and tries to get Daisy to admit it.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Both characters were rich and beautiful and most importantly in love. But quickly their marriage deteriorated, Tom was caught cheating and Daisy had cold feel right before her wedding. Daisy thought she could go on living unhappily and that eventually she found Gatsby again. Daisy became fixed on the idea that if she just kept up her affair she would be content despite living with a cheating and domineering husband. Tom thought that if only he did not cheat anymore then their marriage would work out but unfortunately for him life is much more complicated.…

    • 1235 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Money is very important to Daisy and she is not afraid to flaunt it. Another example of Daisy showing materialism is when Daisy saw Gatsby 's shirts and she began to cry and say “they’re such beautiful shirts” (Fitzgerald 92). Daisy got emotional at the shirts because she was overwhelmed by all of Gatsby’s expensive possessions. To Daisy, the expensive shirts represented wealth and success. She was astonished at Gatsby’s over the top mansion and she couldn’t keep in her emotions.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some people will do anything for love. Some people build themselves with love as a end goal , while others make one life changing decision for love. In the Great Gatsby, Gatsby and George are two men who let love control them. Love leads to destruction when that love the basis of one’s decisions is one theme seen in the Great Gatsby. This theme is demonstrated through both George and Gatsby 's actions.…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Greed In The Great Gatsby

    • 1041 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Due to Daisy living in East Egg, she tries to maintain her social status by marrying Tom instead of waiting for Gatsby. She accuses her husband that their love “[n]ever matter[ed] to him” while in the hotel room (143). Daisy upholds her affluent East Egg image but at the cost of landing herself in an unhappy marriage. Suffocated by her wealthy lifestyle, Daisy looks for fun outside of her matrimony by associating herself with Gatsby. She has an affair with Gatsby because of the money he has and what he can provide for her.…

    • 1041 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    it increased her value in his eyes” (Fitzgerald 149). To Gatsby, Daisy was now an object that he could add to his collection of luxurious items. When he tried to earn her “love” again, he presented her with material objects. He outdid himself at tea, showed her his marvelous house filled with treasures and ornate decorations all to impress her. The love that might have been present at one point is now all gone.…

    • 1203 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, Daisy became tired of waiting. She found another man, this time a wealthy one, Tom Buchanan. She married him in 1919, abandoning Gatsby and all she ever promised him. Her actions at this time show that she was more concerned with her image than with her emotions. Five years later, once Daisy and Gatsby have been reunited with the help of Nick, Daisy becomes unfaithful to her husband and has an affair with her former lover.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Daisy has a love affair with Gatsby, and allows Nick and Jordan’s plan to reunite Gatsby and Daisy. Jordan helps Nick bring married Daisy Buchanan to Gatsby. Daisy is aware of Tom’s shenanigans and doesn’t take any action or consider divorcing Tom. The morals of the women match the time period reckless and dazed, and aware of one another’s…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    His real name was James Gatz. But he had a dream and ambitions of breaking free from the place he was born into. He created a new name for himself that reflected his true self identity. When a rich man Mr. Dan Cody on the yacht stopped at the bay, James warned him of the upcoming wind that would break soon. Mr. Dan Cody saw this young ambitious boy and asked his name and that’s how Jay Gatsby was born.…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays