9/7/23
Obsession or Love?
It’s the second post and I struggled with what I wanted this post to be about. I could continue to develop on the idea of the silver idol or I could come back to that next time. I think I decided I wanted to focus on the text evidence that Gatsby has an obsession with Gatsby, whether it’s love or not.
In the novel, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is seemingly a wealthy man, whether it’s from his family or being a self-made man. It’s blatantly obvious that he flaunts his success as a tactic to draw the attention and attraction of Daisy Buchanan. After meeting Daisy again, Gatsby makes a remark that “five years next November” is when they first met. Gatsby essentially admits to keeping count of the days since he last saw this woman, and he doesn’t seem the least bit worried it will come across negatively. In some way, I think he believes that Daisy will be overjoyed at his memory of the specific timeline. To me, this already proves that Gatsby had an obsession with Daisy that began and continued to blossom into an elaborate show of wealth and success.
Later on, Gatsby exclaims that he can repeat the past. The past he’s referring to is when he and Daisy first met and loved each other without consequence. He’s under the illusion that he’s powerful and influential enough that he can turn back the clock and rearrange everything to replicate five years prior. Instead of growing with her and transitioning into a new life, he wants to preserve his past that he is obsessed with. The fact that he shows little interest in expanding their relationship into more than it was originally proves the obsessive nature of Gatsby.
In the novel, there is insight on how Gatsby originally viewed Daisy. “It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes,” it expanded his lust for her. She was given value based on how she was seen by others, not necessarily how Jay Gatsby saw her. The amount of attention she got from other men contributed to the value he placed on her. I think it could be argued whether Gatsby truly loved her in the beginning but that’s for another day where I will revisit the quote.
Gatsby has an obsession with Daisy whether you believe it’s love or not. An obsession can be born of love, or it can be a sense of greed towards an object.