Success is a term that has an endless amount of meanings: accomplishment of goals, achieving happiness, attaining popularity or wealth, and an insane amount of other definitions. Definitions from the authors Geoffrey James, G.K. Chesterton, and Jacquelyn Smith will allow for a better understanding of the ambiguous term of success. This new understanding of success will offer a new view on whether or not Jay Gatsby is a successful man. Jay Gatsby, a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, was born as James Gatz from a poor farming family. Now, Gatsby is an extremely wealthy man who many people believe is successful due to his possessions and riches. Using information from the three authors, it is clear that Jay Gatsby’s life
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That depends on how success is defined. In Geoffrey James’ article “True Secret to Success (It’s Not What You Think),” he defines a successful person as someone “who approach[es] life with a sense of gratitude” (James 1). Using James’ definition, it is easy to see that Jay Gatsby is an extremely unsuccessful man. When Nick first describes Gatsby, he exclaims, “No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men” (Fitzgerald 6-7). What preys on Gatsby is an insidious illness that prevents him from ever becoming content in life, even when he accomplishes his goals. Nick provides an insight to Gatsby’s dreams when Gatsby was seventeen years old working as a clam digger and a salmon fisher: “But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor” (105). Gatsby is unsatisfied with his economic and social status and loses sleep over the craving of a life of magnificence
That depends on how success is defined. In Geoffrey James’ article “True Secret to Success (It’s Not What You Think),” he defines a successful person as someone “who approach[es] life with a sense of gratitude” (James 1). Using James’ definition, it is easy to see that Jay Gatsby is an extremely unsuccessful man. When Nick first describes Gatsby, he exclaims, “No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men” (Fitzgerald 6-7). What preys on Gatsby is an insidious illness that prevents him from ever becoming content in life, even when he accomplishes his goals. Nick provides an insight to Gatsby’s dreams when Gatsby was seventeen years old working as a clam digger and a salmon fisher: “But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor” (105). Gatsby is unsatisfied with his economic and social status and loses sleep over the craving of a life of magnificence