Gatsby’s young love… ahhhhhh!


Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby is a very complex character. Everything that he has become in his life that made him a rich and famous socialite he did out of love, though, his love is juvenile. Gatsby is in love with Daisy Buchanan, wife to Tom Buchanan and a “stay at home” mother. Daisy may not work, she doesn’t have to Tom provides all that they need for the family, but that is not to say that she spend her time staying at home, in fact she never even does any real mothering. Throughout the book she has proven herself to be nothing more than a fancyfied child who continues to make poor decisions and think of only herself. Moreover the very way Gatsby goes about romancing Daisy is childish and shallow. Though the object of his heart is shallow, Gatsby proves his love childish by proceeding to woo Daisy by amassing a vast horde of riches in order to offer her complete comfort, and by throwing lavish parties that would attract her attention at some point. Despite all this Gatsby does prove himself truly in love and does show how much he can care by changing from a poor veteran of the war to a inconceivably rich socialite.
The object of Jay Gatsby’s desire is Daisy Buchanan, a rich and dainty wife of Tom Buchanan, and who has a child with Tom. Daisy is mentioned throughout the book as being dainty and though not directly described as such is a total child. Even when dealing with her own child she treats it like a fantastic toy, “’Bles-sed pre-cious,’ she crooned, holding out her arms. ‘Come to your own mother that loves you.’ The child relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mothers dress. ‘The bles-sed pre-cious! Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say – How-de-do.’” (Pg 117). This sentence shows just how Daisy thought of her child just after forcing her to say hello to Gatsby and Nick she gave her back to the nurse who would take care of her until mommy wanted to play with her pretty little doll. God I wish I could read about her trying to deal with her daughter once she hits puberty. And this is just a small example of the true nature of Daisy Buchanan. Fortunately by the end of the book Nick realized that she and her husband Tom were children flitting into peoples lives and screwing them up before retreating into their mansion and the protection of their status as rich. It is clear example of how Daisy messes up peoples live by what happened to Gatsby. Convinced that she loved Gatsby she would tell Tom that she no longer loved him, divorce him, then marry Gatsby. But seduced by Toms words and her own indecision she quickly chickens out and then decides to instead break things off with Gatsby, the easier path.

The method of Gatsby’s wooing is in itself shallow. He got rich and threw parties to invite the eye of a woman who wouldn’t look at you unless you could put a ring on her finger that would disconnect her finger. If he had looked for love in almost any, even slightly less spoiled person he would see that love can have depths that money does not penetrate. Unfortunately he was blinded by the delusion of love with Daisy and wouldn’t even take a chance. The initial reason that Gatsby became famous was because he was an heir to Dan Cody’s vast wealth. Once he found himself rich he immediately headed toward were daisy lived and even bought a house directly opposite the inlet from the Buchanan’s. Finally exactly were he wanted to be it was time to find a way to introduce daisy to the new Jay Gatsby, who apart from being a legend was rich and desperately in love with her. So, he started throwing parties. He threw many parties, however he was never the fun loving host, instead he was never seen at parties to the extent that Nick didn’t realize that he was talking to him until a while into their conversation. Finally Daisy showed up to one such party accompanied by Nick, and Gatsby got his wish.
When Gatsby finally had Daisy and managed to convincer her, without warning words of the difficulty of the revelation she now thought she wanted to utter, to leave Tom and marry Gatsby. Tom a man who was a mistress beater, for he had been cheating on Daisy with a woman by the name of Myrtle for the entirety of the book, was jealous and realized what was going on way before Gatsby intended, which lead to an argument during which Daisy admitted having feelings for both Tom and Gatsby. Gatsby was devastated but didn’t know how to deal with it and naively thought for the rest of the book that Daisy would at some point come around to his way of thinking and leave Tom. Unfortunately for him his affections would lead to his death. While allowing Daisy to drive his car they accidentally hit and killed Myrtle, Tom’s mistress and wife to Gatsby’s soon to be killer. Tom after realizing that the car that had hit Myrtle was owned by the same man that had tried to steal his wife, told Myrtles husband, George, who had done it. Grief stricken, George headed out and asked around until he found all he needed about Gatsby. He went to Gatsby’s house and shot him.

Gatsby was the best of the worst. None of the characters in The Great Gatsby were particularly deep, or even likable. However he was the only one who did things for a reason that even held deeper meaning than greed, and self interest. What Gatsby did was for love and no matter how shallow and childlike his love may have been we must remember that he at least did things in a way that held feeling in higher regard that money.