Great Gatsby By Fitzerald Essay, Research Paper

Everyone wants to be successful in life, but most often people take the wrong

ways to get there. In the 1920?s the American Dream was something that

everyone struggled to have. A spouse, children, money, a big house and a car

meant that someone had succeeded in life. A very important aspect was money and

success was determined greatly by it. This was not true in all cases however.

The belief that every man can rise to success no matter what his beginnings. Jay

Gatsby was a poor boy that turned into a very wealthy man, but did he live the

American Dream? Money is actually the only thing that Gatsby had a lot of. Jay

Gatsby tries to live the life of The American Dream, but fails in his battle.

From his early years Gatsby has his eye one Daisy and throughout his life he is

deeply in love with her, but he never marries or even has a life with her.

Another one of Gatsby?s goals in life was to be an extremely successful, just

like his model Dan Cody, but that plan ends up failing as well. As a part of

what Dan Cody taught him, Gatsby attempted to go into business with a man named

Meyer Wolfsheim, but failed at that also. For such a long time Gatsby has had

his eye on Daisy and has been in love with her, but this does not. Gatsby has

always gazed at the green light on Daisy?s porch. Jordan Baker says,?Gatsby

bought that house so that Daisy would be across the bay.?(page 79). The color

green is traditionally a symbol of hop and youth and that is what Gatsby is

hoping to find beyond it. When Gatsby and Daisy meet, he tells her about how he

has watched the green light that burns at the end of her dock. For so long that

light has been a symbol of his dream, of something he has wanted more than life

itself. Gazing at it so much, Gatsby must have believed that if he could only

have Daisy he would be eternally happy. In chapter four he suddenly has her and

the light is just a light again. It doesn?t seem that Daisy could ever be as

wonderful as Gatsby?s dream of her. Dreams, sadly for Gatsby are most often

longed for rather than made a reality. Gatsby never ends up getting with Daisy

his shining star in life, much of what he lived for. In his younger years,

Gatsby worked on the south shore of Lake Superior earning room and board by

digging clams and fishing for salmon. One day he saw the beautiful yacht of the

millionaire Dan Cody and borrowed a rowboat to warn Cody of an impending storm.

Cody took the seventeen-year-old boy on as a mate, and secretary. When Cody

died, he left the boy, now Jay Gatsby, a legacy of $25,000. Unfortunately Gatsby

never got the amount of money that he deserved because Cody?s wife stole most

of it. On the day that he saved Dan Cody’s yacht, he must have seen an

embodiment of everything he wanted. In a strange sort of way Gatsby never

believed that he was just James Gatz. He had an idea of what he wanted to be.

Gatsby had an image of himself, to which he gave the name Gatsby. From the day

that he met Dan Cody he decided to dedicate his life to the development of the

idea of himself that existed in his head. Although he was successful at making

money in business, Jay Gatsby was never able to become a man as successful as

Dan Cody who had everything he wanted in life. The experiences with Cody

however, helped Gatsby to later pursue a job in business. We are introduced to

the business side of Gatsby in the person of Meyer Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim is

modeled on the real-life figure of Arnold Rothstein, the man who helped fix the

1919 World Series. Through Wolfsheim, we learn about Gatsby’s connections with a

shady underworld, and we begin to understand for the first time where Gatsby’s

money comes from. The discovery of Gatsby’s unsavory business dealings may taint

his dreams question his "greatness." Gatsby?s involvement with Meyer

Wolfsheim caused his whole idea of the American Dream to be shattered. With

these shady business dealings Gatsby could never succeed in life. A combination

of bad luck, not being outgoing, and getting into bad dealings leads to Jay

Gatsby?s failure at the American Dream. Even though he had the money and house

that he needed in order to have Daisy fall in love with him, Gatsby had no idea

of how to let her know he was in love. If Gatsby had tried to be more like

himself than he possibly would have had a greater chance of succeeding in life.

For Gatsby truly did fail. At a point of his life when he had a minimal amount

accomplished, he was shot in cold blood by Tom Buchannan while taking his first

swim ever. After all the American Dream is not for everyone in life, many did

not succeed at fulfilling it in the 1920?s when is was so popular. Maybe not

all poor men are meant to magically have success in life?