The Great Gatsby

Born James Gatz, Jay Gatsby is a mysterious millionaire who throws lavish parties virtually every night while maintaining a level of anonymity among the guests. One of the few individuals to whom he reveals himself is his neighbor, Nick. While Nick initially believes this is because of his unassuming and inviting nature, he later learns that Gatsby befriended him in order to get close to Daisy, Gatsby’s ex-lover and Nick’s distant relative. Daisy, a wealthy socialite whom Gatsby met when he was a poor soldier stationed in Louisville, motivated him to rise out of poverty by any means necessary. He exemplifies The Capacity to Reinvent One’s Identity. For Gatsby, that meant accumulating wealth through an illegal bootlegging ring.

Like Nick, Gatsby’s biography shares some details with the author’s. While his parents were upper-middle class, Fitzgerald was considered too poor to marry the rich socialites he courted. Fearing a similar fate, Gatsby lies to Daisy about his modest origins when they first meet to prove he is worthy of her. When Gatsby returns from military service to learn that Daisy married the wealthy Tom Buchanan, he becomes obsessed with winning her back. This is the impetus behind virtually all his actions in the book, including his career as a bootlegger, the mysterious aura he cultivates, and the giant nightly parties he throws.

Despite the wealth Gatsby achieves, Fitzgerald paints him as a victim of the American dream of prosperity. Gatsby projects all his insecurities concerning his humble beginnings onto Daisy, investing her with all of his aspirations toward a life of luxury and sophistication. Viewed through this lens of idealized perfection, Daisy cannot help but disappoint Gatsby. Despite their past and the evident passion they share, Daisy ultimately rejects Gatsby when she discovers the criminal origins of his wealth. The fate of their relationship paints a cynical picture of The Role of Love and Relationships in a Culture Defined by Wealth and Hedonism.

Having been spurned by Daisy, Gatsby loses the source of his vitality and ambition. While his physical life ends when George kills him, the loss of Daisy had already left him dead inside.

Loosely based on Ginevra King, a woman whom Fitzgerald courted, Daisy Buchanan is a beautiful and wealthy socialite from Louisville. Years before the start of the narrative, Gatsby falls in love with Daisy, imbuing her with the sum of his aspirations toward wealth and class. When Gatsby—who lies and says he comes from a wealthy family—leaves for World War I, Daisy promises to wait for him. Instead, she marries Tom Buchanan, a wealthy aristocrat who wins the approval of her parents.

With white petals and a yellow center, the daisy is a symbolically rich name for Daisy Buchanan’s character. The white on the outside represents purity and innocence, qualities that Daisy projects as a member of the “old money” aristocracy. Yet her inner-self is yellow, which traditionally represents corruption. Daisy is corrupted by her infidelity but even more so by her privilege, which allows her to behave capriciously and carelessly without ever facing any real consequences.

Despite Gatsby’s view of her as a model of perfection, Daisy is often fickle, shallow, and immature in her actions. She tends toward passivity, welcoming Gatsby’s willingness to take the blame for Myrtle’s death, only to return to Tom, the boorish yet more socially acceptable option. She thus represents the amoral core at the center of the corrupted American dream of the 1920s, as perceived by Fitzgerald.

Tom Buchanan is Daisy’s racist, aristocratic, boorish husband. Although the other characters often hurt one another through weakness or carelessness, Tom is the only one who behaves in ways that are actively malicious. He physically assaults Myrtle, he blithely advertises his affair to Daisy, and he sabotages Gatsby by revealing his secret past. Most disastrously, he implies to George that Gatsby killed Myrtle, thus causing George to kill Gatsby and then himself.

While Tom is not directly responsible for causing Myrtle’s death or Gatsby’s, his malicious intent in bringing ruin to the people around him make him the novel’s antagonist. Yet Fitzgerald also humanizes Tom by painting him as a star athlete who peaked too soon. Despite these glimmers of humanity, however, Tom’s sense of victimhood is wholly unearned, given his own infidelity. This false victimhood mirrors his own racist fears that “the white race will be—will be utterly submerged” (58).

Jordan Baker is a professional golfer and Nick’s romantic interest. Though drawn to her poise and wealth as Gatsby is toward Daisy, Nick has no illusions about Jordan’s lack of a moral compass. She achieved her success by cheating in her first major golf competition and thus represents the lies on which the new American prosperity is built in the 1920s. Yet she differs from Daisy in her level of self-awareness over her own immoral behavior.

Unerringly cynical and self-serving, Jordan nevertheless breaks gender norms by forcefully pursuing her own interests and desires, even if doing so comes with a measure of duplicity. She thus represents the “flapper” ideal of women who wore short skirts, took no effort to hide their smoking and drinking, and viewed sex more casually than their predecessors. Although Nick admires her for her independence and pragmatism, her deceit and her tacit approval of the Buchanans ultimately provokes his contempt.

Myrtle Wilson is Tom’s mistress and the wife of George Wilson, the working-class owner of a garage. Referred to by Nick as “unattractive” Myrtle deludes herself into believing that Tom is her escape into a life of wealth and luxury. After an argument with George, Myrtle runs into the street and is accidentally killed by an automobile driven by Daisy. Her tragic death sets into motion a series of other tragedies that befall Gatsby and George.