Anyone wants to do a reflective 1st person essay about my research essay?

PUIG 11

Fernando Puig Irizarry

Dr. Steinbrink

AWR 201

December 1, 2016

The Pursuit of Happiness in the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald

The work of F. Scott Fitzgerald in analyzing the vast disparities between the middle and upper classes during 1920’s is substantially employed and portrayed in his novel “The Great Gatsby". The book was produced in 1925. The central storyteller or the narrator that Fitzgerald uses in The Great Gatsby is Nick Carraway, an upright man. The novel uses two important characters called Daisy Buchannan and Jay Gatsby demonstrating many differences between them, because they belong to different classes. Daisy isn’t a character who needs anything, such as Gatsby who needs to change himself for a better appearance. Fitzgerald presents this ethical dilemma in a manner that exposes all the people's delusions regarding how to become a worthy and valuable person, thus using Gatsby to reveal that wealth is all that matters. He also shows the many illusions that people develop in the hope of becoming successful or wealthy people, as well as the delusions and stereotypes created and applied to people belonging to different classes. The author makes it clear that people chase success, recognition, and greatness because they believe these are the ingredients to comfortable and happy lives, which is not always the case. There are also those with the opinion that wealth can fix all existential issues, leading to a happy life, such as Gatsby’s.

From this point of view, the novel depicts that people have to chase prosperity as well as success through two main concepts, which are determination and happiness. The novel suggests what characters should do to obtain happiness, which is the believe that wealth is what fixes life issues the way it is or should be. The work digs greatly from the author’s life experiences, the notions he holds and those held by other people, and he seeks to prove them right or wrong. This period was a tough time of decayed moral and social values that was becoming a big issue. Social problems are presented in the 1920’s that reflect with Fitzgerald’s life; demonstrating the connection between popularity and wealth and how it can lead to the concepts of viewing different kinds of social class in The Great Gatsby. This triumph and tragedy book remarkably captures disparities between the upper and middle classes. F. Scott Fitzgerald believes that money will lead to success and happiness; however, in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby wants to use the benefit of Daisy’s upper class for the determination of having recognition, respect, and prestige.

The author for instance, is critiqued for idolizing Gatsby, who comes out as an ambitious character that desires a wealthy and stable life being with a higher-class woman. He assumes that he can only achieve that life by being wealthy and earning recognition from the community. Jonathan Rich mentioned “Gatsby was a man of means, who conquered poverty in pursuit of a better life” (211). In the current society, there are many people who hold the same idea; that the wealthy and rich people have no problems and are generally happy with their lives. The novel’s author also goes to great lengths to get that idea across, which conforms majority of the people in the world. As Andre Le Vot says, “All people, desire a good life, of wealth and happiness” (76). Wealthy is of great importance to people, because it earns one admiration and prestige.

Being able to conquer means in pursuit of wealth, people also pass through failures in life. Fitzgerald grew up as a writer in early 1920's, he was not only faced with lots of personal life disappointments but he uses Gatsby as a major character to convey his life experiences. Fitzgerald had a fascination with writing books but like he said, “The book didn’t make me as rich as I thought it would nor as you would suspect from the vogue and the way it was talked about” (Le Vot 77). Fitzgerald has been discourage about his career because after a week, the first book had twenty thousand marks of being release and few copies that have already been sold out, but it wasn’t enough. The book managed to sell “40,000 copies in its first year of publication” (Le Vot 76), an indication that this success wasn’t a good income for his career. That was a disappointment to his dream as he compared himself with other publishers that sold “180,000 copies in the first six months” (76) and ascertain that he indeed was making slow progress.

The same unworthiness that Fitzgerald is passing, it’s similar to the feeling of unworthiness attention with Daisy that ruins Gatsby’s dream. Gatsby’s dream is an instillation with Daisy based on the urge to get money and pleasure. Just as we see Gatsby is distracted with Daisy, “demonstrates how a person can be obsessed with the idea of accumulating wealth to impress someone” (Bloom 56). Gatsby has in his mind that the only person that can inspire him as a person is Daisy and that distraction is causing him fail in appreciating the life of a wealthy and happy person. From this point of view, failure has a close connection with The Great Gatsby because going through failure clears the way for you to find your passion, which will ultimately help you find your happiness. As Fitzgerald said: “Our passion is our task, and our job is our passion” (Mizener 24). The only way that a person can find his or her passion is by working hard to achieve success. The same way Daisy inspires Gatsby is similar to Fitzgerald’s writing career inspiration. Besides, the life of Fitzgerald was “the real basis of preoccupation with failure” (Mizener 23), which is explained through Gatsby, saying that The Great Gatsby is a story of many problems that lead to the concern of characters.

Others consider that it also brings with it a set of problems, which include people willing to do anything just to get wealthy and make a name for themselves. During the novelist’s times, the major problems people encountered had to do with money; they included poverty, education, and type of class. When one was wealthy, he was popular and respected however, if one is born into poverty, then the upper classes looked down upon him. It therefore, not a wonder that people such as Gatsby became ambitious in their pursuit of wealth. This particular novel, "The Great Gatsby talks about a story of a thwarted kind of love that existed between a man and a woman but founded in a less romantic scope” (Fitzgerald 78). It is a less romantic scope because of the different class between them. When Daisy comes into the picture, Gatsby demonstrates that he needs to change himself to win her affection and admiration. This situation is making Gatsby want to benefit more from her.

The book also proves that there is truth in the fact that wealth does not necessarily bring happiness. The wealthy people too have their set of problems, but these are unknown to the common people because the wealthy have a certain reputation they want to maintain, it would be unfortunate if they let out all their secrets. Daisy and Tom are partners in a "secret society" of wealth, one that Gatsby cannot recognize, much less join” (Fitzgerald 301). The story’s characters, all seem to have something on each other, that either binds them or sets them apart, differentiating the different classes of people. They are not equal and will never be, which means no chances of them being together.

However, the opposite of what is expected happens in most of the scenes in The Great Gatsby. For instance, Daisy flirts and encourages Gatsby’s acts, and is materialistic as shown when she cries after seen his vast collection of shirts, implying she is attracted to his wealth and Gatsby as a person, but the different class and reputations will never make it happen. That shows how low a person is willing to stoop just to keep the reputation. The society does not expect that of someone like her, and it is an unfortunate act. The pressures of her reputation have caused poor reflection of her character, yet because of the importance of her reputation and social class, she sees it as a noble thing to do. Judging from these, we see that the rich too have more complex problems, yet they are mostly superficial and can be solved by simply failing to care about what people think of you. Such acts are committed throughout out the novel, showing that while wealth is important, it does not contribute to a person’s happiness. Instead, it adds to the pressures and challenges as a person has to live up to other people’s expectations, leaving no focus on morals and self discipline.

The story also reminisces the lives of the American Society in the 1920’s. According to Thomas Streissguth in “The Roaring Twenties” (90), America experienced a societal stratification change that saw more that 20% of the Americans live in towns and cities. That is seen in what is referred to as the “Class consumerism of Fitzgerald’s life” as seen in his novel, The Great Gatsby. In the novel, Gatsby was born in the countryside, but moved to the city later in his life, when he had amassed wealth and felt that he needed to be close to people of means, just like him. However, it is clear that the transition affected him as it did scores of other Americans who loved during his time. The need to be recognized and wealthy, coupled with the Prohibitive laws made people such as Gatsby engage in illegal trade, such as that of alcohol, making them some of the wealthiest people in their towns. Stressiguth stated, “The 1920’s brought class stratification that saw the wealthy live in cities while the poor habited the country. There was movement of people from the country into cities, the rich and those in pursuit of wealth were the movers” (90). That explains Gatsby moving from the countryside into the city, where the rich lived. That is shown by the fact that Gatsby was born poor and unknown, yet when he suddenly became wealthy, few tried to find the source of his wealth. People such as Daisy, who could not associate with him in his poor life, now take notice of him, and he begins hanging out with the mighty people, who welcome him without questioning his source. It is wrong for people to pay homage to others without knowing of the integrity as that only makes people overambitious. Gatsby was willing to break all the codes of conduct in a pursuit of wealth, and the subsequent air of importance that comes with being wealthy.

The novel shows that even though Jay Gatsby was a wealthy man by the measure applied on wealthy people at the time, he falls short of the requirements that weigh a person’s social status. When compared to people like Daisy, he doesn’t fit in because Daisy and Tom have always belonged to the upper class, unlike him, who had to make a fortune to enter the class. Therefore, even if he now belongs to the upper class, he is not an equal to people like Daisy who have always belonged there. Therefore, “stratifications also exist in that class” (Rich 78), showing that the wealthy too have classes that differentiate. Welcoming a person to the upper class does not make him an equal in that class. It is therefore, not a wonder that Gatsby kept striving for more riches as he had the need to belong and be accepted as an equal to Daisy. Although his abusiveness is too much, this situation provides an induction that the “type of class doesn’t matter, given a reason why Daisy should accept Gatsby for who he is and not for what he has to become out of her life” (Canterbery 45). In inclination and conjunction to this, a person should take someone that he or she loves to have happiness, instead of just being with someone for the sake of “value”, personal wealth, and vagueness. Therefore, facades are real as Gatsby is only interested in wealth so that he can attract Daisy and impress her; he hopes that she will view him as an equal, which does not happen.

Interestingly, Jay Gatsby also romanticizes wealth and fails to realize that the American society also demands more of a person and not just wealth. For instance, in his quest to be accepted in to the wealthy class, he works on becoming wealthy and fails to recognize the bonds and ties that exist in that class. Daisy Buchanan and Tom have a bond that cannot be easily broken because they grew in wealth, unlike Gatsby who was raised in the country and moved to the West Egg after amassing wealth. In fact, Daisy hates the West Egg where Gatsby lives, and recognizes that she and Gatsby are as different as the east and the west. It is not a wonder that Gatsby is unsuccessful in wooing Daisy, hence the fact that even though men make own history, they do not make it as they please. Weber stated, “people write history based on the circumstances, experiences encountered and their past” (Schweitzer 277). I am sure that if there was something that Gatsby could have done to change his past, he would have done it just to have Daisy love him. Unfortunately, nothing can change a person’s past, and therefore, he had to accept status is more than the class that a person belongs to. This situation depends on the past and education achieved, which are things that cannot be changed.

Fitzgerald also shows that while a person can hide his true self for a while, the lie cannot hold up for long. That is exemplified when Gatsby is made a soldier and he can now hide his background under his uniform. He also refined himself while a soldier making him acceptable to Daisy as the uniform camouflaged what Daisy would term as flaws; his background, family class and the fact that he belonged to a lower class. However, the facts that he hid these shows that he recognized that he is not equal to the Buchanans hence the need to hide his shortcomings behind his riches. The book is a perfect example that class cannot be bought by wealth. There will always be stratifications exhibited in a society. Gatsby attempts to lie to Daisy by saying, “I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford” (Fitzgerald 65), in an attempt to come out as an Oxford educated man, yet that served to prove to Daisy that he was lying, a suspicion held by Jordan Baker. It was that lie and feeble attempt to cover up about his past that brought out the difference between the two, whereby, Gatsby has to work hard and earn riches to be allowed in the upper class while Daisy is accepted without any effort. From the story, Daisy’s wealth is unknown and inconsequential, yet she proudly belongs to the class while Gatsby can only hope for acceptance, which is clearly not forthcoming.

People hold the opinion that the upper class is also related to hollowness and pretense, same as that held by Donaldson, “the upper class is made of the wealthy that create illusions of richness, happiness and comfort, while they are unhappy” (213). People such as the Buchanans are seen as belong to aristocracy while others such as Scott, who employs West Egg citizens as newly wealthy individuals who want to belong to the upper class, but the upper class is not ready to accept them. Fitzgerald shows that the people classified as the newly rich crave for acceptance from the aristocrats, yet they are vulgar, lack taste and social grace expected out of the upper class while the older aristocrats such as Daisy are elegant, subtle, and graceful. The contrast between Daisy and Gatsby comes from the fact that Gatsby is loud in his dressing and even the car that he drives, lives in an ornate house and is unwilling to pick up on the mannerisms expected of him as a member of the upper class. That is unlike Daisy who fits well with the “Aristocratic Upper Class” (213), she does not have to fight or claim her place because she belongs there.

Therefore, the book does not do much for literature; it however, serves as a historical timepiece that commemorates the social, political and economic changes that the American society underwent in the 1920s. In fact, several critiques have come forward saying that book is just a perfect recall of the 1920s, where people craved admiration and power. The people equated money and riches to power; however, it seems that it was not easy to transition from a poor to an upper class citizen. There were hurdles made the transition almost impossible, as shown by the fact that Gatsby, though immensely wealthy, is never accepted to the wealthy upper class society, whereas, Daisy’s fortunes are unknown yet she is recognized as a member of that class. It is possible that Gatsby wanted to use Daisy to become fully accepted in the class. A marriage to her would have improved his chances of acceptance in that class.

Additionally, the book also shows the decline of the American dream in favor of flexible morals. Weber stated, “The American Dream is idolized with patience, empathy, morals and kindness” (Schweitzer 19). However, Gatsby and other characters in the story do not possess these. Instead they are overconfident, overambitious, loud, provoking and demanding attention by virtue of their riches. Jay Gatsby also practices un-ideal kind of love, where he wants to pursue Daisy not because he is romantically attracted to her, but because he needs to use her as a stepping stone so that he is fully accepted in the upper class of people. Bloom said, “the wealthy wanted to be respected not because they earned respect, but because of self importance attributes” (107). That serves to show the decay of morals that was common at that time, where people using each other to benefit themselves. These activities frustrated the American dream, yet nothing was done to correct the situation.

This novel serves to show the divides that exist between people of different classes. Gatsby is a character that wants acceptance in the upper class because he assumes that he has made enough money and wealth to be accepted in that class. It is possible that Gatsby wanted to use Daisy to become fully accepted in the upper class and marriage would improve his chance of acceptance in the class. However, he fails to recognize that there are other differentiating factors that cause his disapproval from the upper class such as the education, social morals, and the reputational background. Johnson says Gatsby is the fact that he “lacks the mannerisms expected of a person of the upper class, he is loud, gaudy unlike the members of the upper class” (122). He does not fit in the upper class and that makes him angry and unappreciated, hence he is unhappy. People’s expectations matter at that time period. Gatsby will never belong to the upper class; unlike Daisy that always proudly belonged to the upper class.

It is also clear that the American dream was diluted in the times when The Great Gatsby was written. People do what makes them happy and what makes Gatsby happy is to accomplish the stepping stone to the upper class. The way Gatsby wanted to achieve that goal was by taking advantage of Daisy to have a better view of himself. People strive to please others in the hope of being seen in a different light, yet they forget that a person’s class is never bought and the past has everything to do with a person’s class. Gatsby succeeded more, but in The Great Gatsby, characters view the background of people and that is something that cannot be change. Gatsby will never reach the steeping stone that Daisy possesses. One may think that Fitzgerald underwent some of the tribulations in the story because his work is inspired by his life experiences. The American Dream for instance shows that all people were committed to enjoying a fuller life, full of opportunities. Gatsby may have lived his dream but it wasn’t fully for him because he never got the one thing that desired. We should accept that social stratification will never end, and be contented with our lives but we should be willing to change it for the better. However, what cannot be changed should be accepted and people must let go of the life they have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for them. Accepting the social stratifications will lead a person to achieve a happier life, despite the social class that a person belongs.

Works Cited

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Donaldson, Scott. "II. Love and Money." Possessions in The Great Gatsby. Garden City,

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Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender Is The Night. New York: Charles Scribner, 1962. Print. 65-78.

Johnson, Claudia Durst. Class Conflict in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Detroit,

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Mizener, Arthur. The Career: The Authority of Failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A

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Rich, Jonathan. The Couple's Guide to Love & Money. Oakland, CA: New

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Streissguth, Thomas. “The Roaring Twenties.” Journal of 1920’s Issues. New York (2001):

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Vot, André Le. Success, Love and Money. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography. Garden

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