Preview of Gatsby Essay
Prompt: How does Fitzgerald's characterization create a tone around the theme of happiness? What is Fitzgerald's attitude toward happiness? Does it depend on love, on external markers such as wealth, on repairing or atoning the past or on something that is unattainable?
Fitzgerald seems to create a tone that happiness is something that doesn't last. Yes, you can feel happy at certain moments, but it doesn't resonate for a long period of time. Many of the characters in The Great Gatsby are not happy, but act as if they are. It's the bitter truth of the world today.
Gatsby's happiness revolves around love. He doesn't really care about anything else but that. He's an example of a hopeless romantic. After coming back from the war, he does everything in his power to gain Daisy's love and attention back. Once they ignite the "old flame" Gatsby wants things to return to how they were in the past. But time can't just be renewed like that. The past is the past. Within that period of time, people change. Myrtle Wilson seems to find happiness in wealth. She married a man who she thought would give her anything she wanted in the world, but she thought wrong. After finding out he was a broke mechanic who borrowed a suit for the wedding she began to loathe him. This led to her affair with Tom Buchanan who was in an unhappy marriage with Gatsby's past lover.
People view money as the source of happiness. However, it only drives people to greed and slowly become materialistic. Even though a person with so much money can have anything in the world, they want more of it. It's the sad reality. We aren't truly satisfied.
Fitzgerald seems to create a tone that happiness is something that doesn't last. Yes, you can feel happy at certain moments, but it doesn't resonate for a long period of time. Many of the characters in The Great Gatsby are not happy, but act as if they are. It's the bitter truth of the world today.
Gatsby's happiness revolves around love. He doesn't really care about anything else but that. He's an example of a hopeless romantic. After coming back from the war, he does everything in his power to gain Daisy's love and attention back. Once they ignite the "old flame" Gatsby wants things to return to how they were in the past. But time can't just be renewed like that. The past is the past. Within that period of time, people change. Myrtle Wilson seems to find happiness in wealth. She married a man who she thought would give her anything she wanted in the world, but she thought wrong. After finding out he was a broke mechanic who borrowed a suit for the wedding she began to loathe him. This led to her affair with Tom Buchanan who was in an unhappy marriage with Gatsby's past lover.
People view money as the source of happiness. However, it only drives people to greed and slowly become materialistic. Even though a person with so much money can have anything in the world, they want more of it. It's the sad reality. We aren't truly satisfied.
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