Ambiguity In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character Jay Gatsby always has an air of mystery surrounding him. Is Jay his real name? How did he get all of his money? What is he doing in New York? No one knows, that’s what makes him mysterious. Being ambiguous is a big trait of the color orange. However, that is not the only trait of the color orange. Optimistic attitudes, Impulsiveness, and Risk taking are also common traits of the color orange. After analyzing the story, it becomes blatantly obvious that Jay Gatsby displays every last one of these characteristics. No matter what the situation, Nick, the narrator of the story always describes Gatsby as having a smile on his face. With his constant smile and overuse of “Ol’ Sport”, very few times in the story do we find Gatsby with a pessimistic attitude. When telling Gatsby that he can’t expect too much of Daisy and that he can’t repeat the past Gatsby replies with, “‘Can’t repeat the past… Why of course you can!’” (Fitzgerald 110). Though faced with almost certain defeat, Gatsby remains hopeful that Daisy will want to relive the past they had together. If this is not a prime example of just how optimistic Gatsby can be then
Gatsby shows his impulsiveness in so many cases that it is a challenging task to pick only one to represent the single trait. Though there are many cases of Gatsby’s impulses getting the best of him, there is one that sticks in somes memories for being completely uncalled for. The incident that is being spoken of is when Gatsby is showing Daisy around his house and just randomly begins getting every last shirt he owns out. Nick describes it as if, “he was a running down like an overwound clock….throwing them, one by one, before us… While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher” (Fitzgerald 92). This shows just how impulsive Gatsby is, especially when daisy is