For as long as I can remember, I have always been very fascinated by how the human brain works. Why do we think the thoughts we do? What causes people to feel a certain way towards another person? For the Unit 3 research paper I would like to focus on Gatby’s love and/or obsession for Daisy. In this paper I would like to really narrow down on whether or not Gatsby is truly in love with Daisy or if he is just obsessed with the idea of her. I will prove my argument by explaining the psychological aspect of what the human brain does when a person is in love versus what it does when the human brain becomes obsessed with something. Or perhaps Gatsby’s love could lead to him becoming obsessed?
The love versus obsession debate is specifically appealing for me because I am the type of person who feels very big emotions, and sometimes I have a hard time differentiating them. When I become passionate about something I almost become obsessed. It is all my brain can think about. For example, when I was in high school I directed a play. This was a very big undertaking to say the least. Directing a play took a lot of responsibility. While rehearsals were going on, the success of the play was all I could think about. I would even be in my AP Stats class trying to work on a problem, but then I would turn to my friend as well as lead actor, Reid, and let him know if we needed a new prop for rehearsal or if I had a new idea for a scene. I was truly obsessed. Obviously, not the same kind of obsession Gatsby seems to have, but an obsession nevertheless.
In addition to being someone with obsessive tendencies, I am also a hopeless romantic. Therefore, to further dive into how Gatsby truly feels about Daisy is appealing to me because I just love love. Even when I was little I have always loved it. In elementary school when I would watch a movie and two characters would kiss my friends would shriek and scream, “EWW THAT’S SO GROSS!!” while covering their eyes. But I would not scream nor cringe. I would just sit there and watch it. I think my love of romance came from my parents constantly showing me Disney movies from a very early age because in all those movies the happy ending would always happen when the princess ends up with her prince.
In terms of research for this assignment, I have actually not started yet because I just came up with the idea a few minutes before I started writing this PRELIM. However, I am planning to use articles I find on the OU Library website. Along with that, I am also planning on asking my roommate, Zayle, other places I can find good sources for this because she is a psychology major. Once I have some basic knowledge on how the human brain works I will rewatch the movie, so I can look for physical indicators of Gatsby’s love and/or obsession towards Daisy. I am more of a visual learner, so I feel like if I watch them interact I will be able to determine which side of my argument I agree with more.
I am looking forward to getting started on this research paper because not only will I be able to understand if Gatsby is truly in love with Daisy or if he is merely obsessed with the idea of having her, but hopefully after this project I will be able to better understand some of my own neurological tendencies.