Essay on The Great Gatsby

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Essay on The Great Gatsby

        The Great Gatsby is a novel about a man who tries to win over a woman he had lost many years ago.  Jay Gatsby is the hero in this novel because he stands out amongst the rich.  Unlike the rest of the rich people in this novel Gatsby has moral values, and the rest of them can only grasp things of material value.  Gatsby spends his whole life trying to hide the fact that he wasn’t like the others.  Gatsby never fits in among them because what he perceives of them is all wrong, they were as uncivil as anyone else. Through being less primitive than the rich, determination for love, being ruled by his emotions that erase any doubt, he is quiet tempered; which upholds his greatness, and he is protected by others that tell us of his importance.

Gatsby is not as primitive as the rest of the rich humans, he is more mannered and civil.  The people at his parties are all wild and not civil, what you would not expect from people of this stature.  Gatsby is this way because he has had to earn his money and has not just inherited it like the lazy lot of them.  The only other person that comes close to Gatsby is Nick, but we don’t get to see what he would be like with wealth.  Throughout the novel Gatsby looks out upon the crowd, when he comes down to greet Nick he is very polite to everyone surrounding him, knowing they spread rumors and lies about him.  He doesn’t think anything of it because he knows it’s natural for people to gossip, he can’t judge them on it because it is the crowd he wishes to become.  Nick tells Gatsby he is better than the whole rotten bunch of them, Nick realizes this because he knows what it is like to be poor and he knows Gatsby still acts like a poor man, but he has all the wealth to cover it up (p.146).  

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Gatsby is determined to find his one true love, which causes him to stand out from the wealthy as well.  All of the rich in the novel aren’t searching for anything, none of the rich can love anything unless it is of material value.  It seems like they love each other, but they only do out of each other’s wealth.  Tom does not love Daisy he cheats on her all the time.  Daisy did not love Tom, she married him for wealth, or else she would have married Gatsby if he were not confronted.  Gatsby was into bootlegging, which was ...

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