Gatsby’s Love for Daisy: Real or a Dream?
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy Buchanan is basically the whole of the story. Gatsby spends years building the perfect image of Daisy in his head. Gatsby throws wild parties, gains huge amounts of money, and even goes so far as to buy a mansion directly across from the bay where she resides simply so that he might possibly get her back. Kind of romantic, but a little pathetic in my opinion.
Gatsby’s affection is really not for the real Daisy, though. It’s for the idea of her, like this mythical version he’s been harboring since they were kids. He remembers the past as having been this fantasy era, and feels that if he can just recreate it, everything will be fine in the world once more. But the human does grow, and Daisy far from remains the same little girl she was five years earlier. She is married to Tom, and has a whole life now that Gatsby is not part of.
What’s even more tragic is that Daisy is unable to fulfill Gatsby’s enormous expectations. No one could, really. He’s chasing a dream that doesn’t exist, and in the end, it kills him. Gatsby’s love is real in a sense, because he never lets go of it, but it’s also kind of blind. He just won’t see Daisy for what she is.
Overall, Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy shows the dangers of living in the past and chasing something that exists only in your own imagination.