10/13
The Illusion
Jumping back into Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship now with asking the question, when did Gatsby’s dream drift into disillusionment? When Gatsby and Daisy first meet, Jay starts the relationship by giving Daisy false hope of security he doesn’t have. It almost seems like Gatsby started his illusion right then but I think that he really just wanted a chance to have someone he couldn’t have ever pictured himself with based on his status. After he gets a taste, he realizes he wants more and then begins to plot how he can return to her after he serves but after his time away, she has moved on and is now married to a man of old money, someone born into his fortune and success. This is the point where I think Gatsby starts his illusion about all he can accomplish to get Daisy back in his life.
Gatsby begins to plot how he can turn his life around and act like he has old money by joining organized crime. He justifies it by telling himself it’s all for Daisy and the life they WILL have once he becomes good enough for her affection. Jay is a determined man who can’t look forward from the past or understand that she has a family and a comfortable life. He is stuck viewing life from rose colored glasses or at the very least a veil that has obstructed his perception of reality.
Jay Gatsby has a tendency to focus all of his time and energy to Daisy without knowing how she will react because he’s stuck in the delusion that it will all end in a happily ever after, even after Daisy commits a hit and run that he was planning to take the fall for, or at the very least, attempt to protect her from the consequences.
Throughout the book, Gatsby demonstrates that he understands how the world works considering how he profits off organized crime and illegal proceedings but refuses to even think that Daisy may have moved on after five years away from him. Because it’s only Daisy that clouds his rational thinking, it’s evident that Jay Gatsby lives in the illusion that he will have his long lost love.