What Is Daisy's Image In The Great Gatsby

In waiting to see Daisy for 5 years, Gatsby created an image of her that was unlike her actual personality. Nick describes this feeling of Gatsby’s by saying “ No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart.” (96) This quotation captures Gatsby’s essence. Gatsby has created an image of himself in much the same way he has created an image of Daisy. With his massive fanciful parties, he has created an aura surrounding himself designed to attract Daisy. Within this “ghostly heart”, Gatsby has conjured and embellished visions of Daisy. This phrase also leads the reader to believe that Gatsby has two hearts, the visible one that is welcoming to all and the more personal invisible one that is single- minded
Nick describes Gatsby's thoughts in saying “A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees” (161). This ominous imagery directly portends Gatsby’s murder by Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson is described as gliding towards Gatsby in a sort of supernatural way, in keeping with Fitzgerald's way of portraying something on the fringe of reality as a ghost. Wilson is on the fringe here in several ways, first through his belief that Gatsby killed Myrtle and second, his own mental state of a man so distraught that he is near death himself. Wilson kills Gatsby, the ultimate man of what is unreal, due to a misguided vision about something that Gatsby didn’t do. This whole quotation captures the elusive truth about Gatsby. It describes a world where things don’t have to be real and dreams, things that are real, but only to the person who sees them and where dreams come true in a steady stream. This is the world in which Gatsby lives, on the border of substance and nonentity, where dreams flow like water. Gatsby gets everything he dreams of through his realization of himself with his mansion, his millions and above all, Daisy. It is then ironic that everything that broke right for Gatsby comes crashing down
In this beautiful and poetic moment, Nick describes a tree that covers the window; “The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves”(152). This moment foreshadows the afternoon’s confrontation through the usage of the word abruptly. This describes the moment when Tom punctures Gatsby’s bubble and finally reveals him for what he is, a bootlegger. This line is a metaphor for the events leading to Gatsby’s demise. The word ghostly carries a connection with death and the unreal, as it has for the duration of the novel. The noun birds, however shows the reader that both Myrtle’s death and Gatsby’s death are being prophesied by these birds, which sing their spectral tunes. Earlier in the passage, Nick describes the sunrise, describing it as “ gray-turning, gold-turning light” (152). This imagery of a sunrise, usually used in literature to depict a new beginning, contrasts the shadowy, half-reality and death imagery used to depict Gatsby in the