Great Gatsby Mega Essay
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 09/05/2011 11:48 AM
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Love’s Past Undone
The Roman poet Virgil once wrote that love conquers all. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s love for Daisy is accurately described by this phrase because his actions are motivated by an attempt to reclaim her love. Love has truly conquered Jay, and as a result, made him incapable of doing anything other than trying to recreate his love with Daisy. Although Jay’s outward appearance is that of someone who has been very successful in life, he is actually powerless in the only area that he cares about because he is plagued by the ironic themes of simple human loss, a retreat to a more glorious past, and hopelessness.
The driving irony in The Great Gatsby is the simple human loss of Gatsby’s love for Daisy. This central driver leads to Gatsby’s powerlessness over his own life in the face of this loss. When Gatsby went off to serve in the war, he left Daisy behind to an unknown destiny. He had obligations to fulfill for the military by going to war, and his return is further delayed as some “complication or misunderstanding” forces him to attend Oxford (151). These simple yet unforeseeably agonizing events, not so different than what the average person could go through, contribute directly to his losses, with the most important and driving one being the loss of Daisy’s love. Before his departure, Jay and Daisy were in love with each other. Gatsby’s initial attempt for reuniting him and Daisy occurs because he realizes that he “wants to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.” (89). He wants to recover the lost time and feelings due to his separation from Daisy. Even though Gatsby was overseas, both lovers constantly wrote letters to each other. Gatsby felt the time away from Daisy was unbearable despite having only been gone for just...
The Roman poet Virgil once wrote that love conquers all. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s love for Daisy is accurately described by this phrase because his actions are motivated by an attempt to reclaim her love. Love has truly conquered Jay, and as a result, made him incapable of doing anything other than trying to recreate his love with Daisy. Although Jay’s outward appearance is that of someone who has been very successful in life, he is actually powerless in the only area that he cares about because he is plagued by the ironic themes of simple human loss, a retreat to a more glorious past, and hopelessness.
The driving irony in The Great Gatsby is the simple human loss of Gatsby’s love for Daisy. This central driver leads to Gatsby’s powerlessness over his own life in the face of this loss. When Gatsby went off to serve in the war, he left Daisy behind to an unknown destiny. He had obligations to fulfill for the military by going to war, and his return is further delayed as some “complication or misunderstanding” forces him to attend Oxford (151). These simple yet unforeseeably agonizing events, not so different than what the average person could go through, contribute directly to his losses, with the most important and driving one being the loss of Daisy’s love. Before his departure, Jay and Daisy were in love with each other. Gatsby’s initial attempt for reuniting him and Daisy occurs because he realizes that he “wants to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.” (89). He wants to recover the lost time and feelings due to his separation from Daisy. Even though Gatsby was overseas, both lovers constantly wrote letters to each other. Gatsby felt the time away from Daisy was unbearable despite having only been gone for just...