Daisy Buchannan
Gatsby Essay
Money Cannot Buy You Love People say that money cannot buy you happiness. This belief is put to the test in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby spends his fortune building a mansion to impress his first love, Daisy Buchanan. With his newly accumulated wealth, Gatsby thinks Daisy will love him like she did in the summer of 1917. But deep down, Daisy cannot love Gatsby the way he wants because she is committed to the protective bubble of her old money wealth. Daisy is a representation of the unscrupulous values of the upper class East Egg, which Gatsby falls in love with, but because she is a product of this society she cannot love Gatsby back.
Gatsby’s abstract idea of who he wants to be takes form in Daisy. Since he was a young boy, he wanted to rise up from his lower class roots and become a successful, wealthy man. When he fell in love with Daisy, he fell in love with money. “[Her voice] was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it…high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (120). Daisy represents everything Gatsby has wanted to obtain since he was a little boy. She has an aura of ease, wealth, and aristocracy, which is what initially attracted him to her. Being back together with her would crystalize his success in the world. He puts Daisy up on a pedestal of innocence and materialism that she does not deserve. Gatsby is blind to her limitations because his dreams of money have so far had no limits. He was able to move up the economic ladder, build a gaudy, lavish house, and obtain celebrity status, in order to become closer to Daisy. Without Daisy, it would all be for nothing. He invests all his dreams into the love from Daisy. The problem is that Daisy is not able to live up to his fantasy. In reality, she is shallow and fickle. When the dream of her is taken away from him, Gatsby is left to see all the corruption in the world of
Money Cannot Buy You Love People say that money cannot buy you happiness. This belief is put to the test in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby spends his fortune building a mansion to impress his first love, Daisy Buchanan. With his newly accumulated wealth, Gatsby thinks Daisy will love him like she did in the summer of 1917. But deep down, Daisy cannot love Gatsby the way he wants because she is committed to the protective bubble of her old money wealth. Daisy is a representation of the unscrupulous values of the upper class East Egg, which Gatsby falls in love with, but because she is a product of this society she cannot love Gatsby back.
Gatsby’s abstract idea of who he wants to be takes form in Daisy. Since he was a young boy, he wanted to rise up from his lower class roots and become a successful, wealthy man. When he fell in love with Daisy, he fell in love with money. “[Her voice] was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it…high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (120). Daisy represents everything Gatsby has wanted to obtain since he was a little boy. She has an aura of ease, wealth, and aristocracy, which is what initially attracted him to her. Being back together with her would crystalize his success in the world. He puts Daisy up on a pedestal of innocence and materialism that she does not deserve. Gatsby is blind to her limitations because his dreams of money have so far had no limits. He was able to move up the economic ladder, build a gaudy, lavish house, and obtain celebrity status, in order to become closer to Daisy. Without Daisy, it would all be for nothing. He invests all his dreams into the love from Daisy. The problem is that Daisy is not able to live up to his fantasy. In reality, she is shallow and fickle. When the dream of her is taken away from him, Gatsby is left to see all the corruption in the world of