The Great Gatsby 3 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?