The Great Gatsby
An illusion is an imagination that one perceives as reality, which at times can be misleading. It is reality that could not be realized and unavoidable because it cannot keep up with ideals. They are values that people believe in living from the world of happiness, fame and fortune, and everything that has been given to them is true. It is an American Dream in which people devote their whole entire life with. To achieve the material goods with which to satisfy their wants, otherwise perceived as needs. F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote The Great Gatsby stresses the need for hope and dreams to give meaning and purpose to man's efforts. Dreams that led to the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goal. This dream differs for different people, but in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is through his wealth and power that was an illusion to his happiness and his life that he tried to create. To get this happiness Jay's ambition to reach into the past and relive an old dream shattered his faith in life's possibilities. Gatsby is distinguished as a man who retains some of the purest traits of the old dream, but loses them by attempting to reach his goals by wearing the dream's modern face.
Gatsby is an example failure of the American Dream. Knowing that his parents were poor and unsuccessful, Gatsby couldn't accept them for that so he promotes his actual name to what he thinks should be his real name: Jay Gatsby. He hid his identity and created someone who was a fantasy of his imagination. Now that Gatsby has left James Gatz behind and is a new person he begins to look for more. He begins to think of the fantasy of being rich and wealthy by having confidence in himself. In order to attract her attention, he amasses a fortune, earned from bootlegging and other illegal means. He lived in a huge mansion that represented what an original moral person would want as an American dream. Gatsby's house "was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville [city hall building] in Normandy [France], with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden."(P9) Gatsby's house is vulgar and excessive. It is a combination of different architectural styles and periods, reflecting an owner who is unsure of his identity. He had fame and fortune, and everything that he wanted was given to him, except Daisy's love and the true meaning to what Gatsby sees as happiness, hopes, and dreams. His love for Daisy was so strong he even bought the house so that he would be able to look across Long Island Dock where Daisy and Tom lives. Gatsby dream of winning Daisy's love is symbolized by the green light that Gatsby sees on Tom and Daisy's dock across Long Island Sound. Later, when Gatsby and Daisy finally are reunited, a mist conceals the green light, visibly affecting Gatsby. "Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever...Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one."(P98
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1253
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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