Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby there are many characters that shape the story and path of the main character, Jay Gatsby. The character that had the greatest affect on Gatsby and significant presence in the story was Daisy Buchanan. Daisy’s character in this novel not only affects Gatsby’s actions and choices, but also many of the main themes as well.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.” This quote in itself represents one of the main themes found in The Great Gatsby, hope. It is through the character of Daisy Buchanan where we find the bud of hope that Gatsby lives his life by, in order to find meaning and a future. Everything Gatsby does is all for Daisy, in hopes that his past love will return to him. Throughout the story we learn that Gatsby bought a house in West Egg only so that he could win Daisy back. He built his mansion in a certain spot just so he could look across the bay at the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. It was hope that drove Gatsby’s daily actions- hope for Daisy’s return, throwing parties simply for the idea that she may show up at one; hope for a meeting with her, planned only by extensive networking through friends, Jordan Backer and Nick; hope for a life; hope for a future; hope for a dream.

Fitzgerald, the author of the novel, stresses the importance and need for hope and dreams to give meaning and purpose to all of Gatsby’s actions. The only thing that Gatsby has in his lonely life is his past love with Daisy. Fitzgerald also shows in his novel the failure of hope, and subsequently also the failure of the American dream. Not only are Gatsby’s ideals incapable of keeping up with reality, but also because the idea of Gatsby and Daisy reuniting romantically is clear to an outsider as being less than unlikely. Because it is in Gatsby’s character to be unreasonable, stubborn, and also overly sentimental he constantly tries to attempt the impossible by trying to bring his past back to life and never truly growing up. It is the green light on Daisy’s dock which truly represents hope, as a beckon of life, love, and what once was, it endlessly taunts Gatsby, subconsciously reminding him that the lake that separates himself and Daisy, may as well be an ocean. Without