C.+Gatsby+Essay

The Great Gatsby Essay A “You want to hold on to your dream even more when times are hard”(Seelye 1) is a phrase that is very comparable to Gatsby’s situation in the novel. Before he went to the war, he said to himself that he will return to Daisy and be together with her. However, after he came back the situation was unexpectedly difficult. Daisy had married Tom, a rich polo player from the ‘old money’. But even in these hard times, he never gave up and held on to his goal. He believed in himself and that Daisy still would love him. Just like the American dream nowadays, he worked a lot on getting closer to Daisy, which was not a guarantee for success though. “She’s never loved you. She loves me”(Fitzgerald 130). Gatsby is very close to achieving his goal of being together with Daisy. However, his strong believe made him ignorant. The times and relations changed and with them also the American Dream. A quote from the article I referred to also says:”And if you want to hold on to it[the American dream], then you better define it differently”(Seelye 1). It means that you have to rethink your goals in relation to the circumstances around yourself. This suits to Gatsby’s issue: he thought that he would get Daisy back quickly after they met again. But he forgot that she is married to an influential man with a safe future and a lot of money. He lost her the day he went to the war and with her also the chance of achieving his (American) dream. At the end of the novel, Nick Carraway resumes: “He had come a long way to his blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him[…]”(Fitzgerald 180). To have a goal and a chance of achieving it does not mean that one can ever make it. Sometimes a dream is just an illusion - like it was for Gatsby – covering his eyes and turning the reality into a land where everything is possible. The article underlines that:”At its core, the notion that anyone can be president or anyone can become a billionaire is absurd”(Seelye 3). The American dream does exist for everybody who has a goal, but it is unachievable when the dream becomes bigger than truth and reality.