The Great Gatsby: Tragedy In Illusions

4 Pages 955 Words

Within literature, whether it is in novels or in plays, there is often an element of tragedy. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the primary tragic element to the story is the loss of the defining line between fantasy and reality. There is, or should be, a boundary between the real world and the world of dreams and fantasies, but this novel exemplifies the dangers of allowing that boundary to be broken. Specifically, Jay Gatsby, the title character, allows his life to be ruled by the chasing of a dream, thereby leaving reality behind.
Jay Gatsby loses himself in the fantasy that his one-time lover, Daisy Buchanan, will leave her husband and return to him. He wraps himself in a cloak of delusions, believing that he can win her back, after five years of non-communication between them. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end. As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal t...