1st June 2017

Character

Character

  • Describe three key characters and how they change in the novel.

The three characters I think have changed throughout the novel would be Gatsby, Daisy and Nick.Jay Gatsby, previously known as James Gatz, one of the main character in The Great Gatsby. He is a very charming man but a bit mysterious. He has this enormous mansion right next to one of the other main characters, Nick. Both living on West Egg, just out of New York City. Each night he holds a massive party gathering people from all over to come, thousands of people would come without being invited at all, everyone just seemed to know about the parties. At the start of the book, we see everything is just perfect for Gatsby, a man who has worked hard for everything he has now, but when we read further we see that it isn’t how it seems. Gatsby has a story about how he got where he is today, every person he tells it never ever changes. As soon as he reignited with Daisy, his story starts to show cracks. He was in love with Daisy and never lost the love even after leaving her. 5 years later they find each other again. We find out that everything that he has done hasn’t been for the wealth, it was just for Daisy. His house placed right opposite to daisy’s, in the distance. At the end of Daisy’s house there is a doc with a green light that never goes away.  “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.” This is a quote that Gatsby says to Daisy. When Gatsby sees the green light he sees hope, hope to be with Daisy one day. But in that day the green light was fading showing that the dream for Gatsby to be with Daisy was clouded. Even though the dream had faded, it had not completely disappeared his still held onto the tiniest bit of hope. Right at the end of the book, Gatsby is bathing in the pool just waiting for the call daisy promised. It never seemed to come. “He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves…” This was the moment when Gatsby lost all hope, he knew Daisy was not going to call. The unfamiliar sky, Gatsby is now seeing the world in new eyes, After all that time chasing after Daisy, it was all for nothing. He now has to face the fact that his world will no longer have Daisy in it.

Daisy Buchanan is introduced as Nick’s cousin. She lives over in East Egg, which is known for old money meaning that the people that live there are born into their money. She came from a healthy background. She is married to Tom Buchanan who as well as Daisy has a lot of money. When we first meet Daisy, She is presented as all beauty no brains, we first see her sitting in a ‘white’ dress on a couch with one of her friends Jordan. Throughout the whole book, whenever Daisy is described, she is described with the word white. White can be seen as a colour of innocence or pureilty but thought about the book we find that Daisy is none of these and is in fact boring. She is no meaning in life, no real friends and no happiness. Gatstby only sees the beauty in her, and decides to ignore the rest of it. He see Daisy as a ‘thing’ not a person, just a thing that is valued, everything in his life is to get the prize, being Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby meet while he was in the army and she vowed that she would wait for him, but as time went on she meet Tom and married him. Tom was rich and was in a social circle that she liked, The wealthy social circle. As soon as Gatsby and Daisy reignite, she says she still loves him and Gatsby believes that she has only ever loved him and not Tom. Gatsby wants Daisy to leave Tom to be with him, as everything he has worked for was for her, especially the money. Gatsby wanted Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him, even though he didn’t know this for sure. He was basically forcing her to tell him. “I never loved him,” she said, with perceptible reluctance.” She says with perceptible reluctance, this showing that she didn’t want to say this, it was not true, But she said it just to please Gatsby because he had told her too. Gatsby was now nearly as wealth as Tom was. Daisy relised this in the scene when they enter Gatsbys house, and Daisy is sitting on the bed while Gatsby is throwing shirts down onto her. As Daisy saw this she still did not want to be with him as he was still not in the social circle that Tom was in, as much as Gatsby did, it was still not enough for her. 

Nick Carraway is the narrator of the book, he is a businessman and has worked his way to be wealthy. He lives next to Gatsby in West Egg. The story is told in his view the way he sees the events unfolding. Nick finds himself quite an non judgemental and open minded person meaning that he will be great to be the narrator. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” This was the advice that was given to Nick as a kid. Until he met Gatsby he has always gone by this. This shows that Nick is grateful for who he is and is taught not to judge anyway as they aren’t the same as him. Nick was also quite shy, he didn’t like to go out and talk with people, but that one day he met Gatsby everything started to change. He began to gain confidence in himself, making him more bold. He also began to judge people, even when he didn’t know it. Nick began to become like a real person, with judgements and emotions. Everything changed inside of nick’s head, his moral went straight out the door. Gatsby brought him out of his shell. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .” This is what Nick said about Tom and Daisy, this was when he was most judgemental. This just shows that Nick changed from the start of the book until the end, he would of never said anything like this if he had not met Gatsby and changed like he did. He was obsessed with Gatsby, followed everything in his life and was now more judgemental that him about things that were happening in Gatsby’s life not even his own. “I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.” Jordan said this, showing that people around him were noticing to too, People liked Nick when we was the person he was before he came into Gatsby’s and Daisy’s life. Nick began to realise for himself and didn’t like it, he was afraid and being the person nick was, he ran away from the problem, when he moved back west.

  • Explain what each character helped you to understand about illusion in the novel. Use quotes to support your ideas.

Gatsby, nick and daisy all help us understand illusion in the novel as all allude themselves to someone that they aren’t. First of all gatsby isn’t who he says he is, he alludes himself to someone ether is rich and has a happy life when really, Gatsby put this persona on. Since he had meet Daisy, it has all been to get her, Daisy wouldn’t marry Gatsby as he was not rich and not in the social circle that she was in. Gatsby then pretended to be the person that Daisy wanted him to be to try win her over. Gatsby changed his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby, just showing us that he was going to change himself. “Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in.” Gatsby also dressed himself as one of them. A person of great importance. Gatsby placed himself on East egg, right opposite from Daisy’s house, so that she would see his huge mansion and recognize it, when in relativity she never noticed it until Gatsby takes her inside of it. He throught parties hoping she would show, and made money illegally just so that he was rich enough for her. We learn from Gatsby that it is not great to live a false life and create  false persona as Gatsby doesn’t get what he was working towards the whole time. He dedicates his whole life towards something that was never going to happen. Gatsby doesn’t have any real friends throughout this journey as he is only focused on one thing, this is not a good life to live and i know i would definitely not want to life a false life. We move onto Daisy, She creates an illusion for us as she alludes us to a rose. A rose is beautiful when you look at it, but as soon as you get closer or grab it, you released it has thorns or you are pricked by the thorns meaning that it isn’t as pretty on the inside. This is like dasit. She eludes us to think she is just perfect, as Gatsby dedicates his whole life to her so you would think that she is perfect for him to do this. She makes us think that she is innocent when in reality Daisy is empty, she is lonely. Daisy has no real friends or any love in her life, she is married to Tom but Tom doesn’t love her. He is off trying to find some excitement so goes to Myrtle. Daisy lacks the real meaning in life while she leads us to think that she has everything she could ever want, money. Last of all, Nick. Nick is the hardest one. He tells us that he is one of the most trustful people, making him great to narrate. He leads us to think that he sticks by his moras and about what his dad had said to him as a kid. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” Nick persuades us that he is not judgemental at all. “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” He alse believes that there were not many people at all in the world that were honest but he was one of them. We know that thus can not be true and just an illusion as the book is based around Nick’s perspective. How could he not be judgemental when he was giving an opinion on everything that was happening around him. He may just be one of the most judgemental people in the book, as he would take a side, usually Gatsby as he was obsessed with him and judged the other people.

  • Describe three important relationships in the text and explain what they revealed about illusion. Use quotes to support your answers.

Gatsby and Daisy: Gatsby and Daisy met while ago, she fell for him but then received a note saying he was going off to army and she was heart broken. They stopped talking and 5 years later they are reignited. Gatsby had never forgotten about Daisy and changed his life so that she would fall for him again. He wanted her to forget whatever had happened in the last 5 years and go back to him. Daisy was now married to Tom with a child, Tom was wealthy and in the upper social circle, the same one she was in while Gatsby had to make his own money. Making him not worthy of her. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship was never going to work as they were from different social circles no matter how hard Gatsby tried, nothing was going to go anywhere. Their relationship was unreal, she was married meaning that she never had any sort of relationship with Daisy. There was no real emotions. “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.” The mist was the time between them, the things that had happened in the last 5 years, it kept coming back to remind them whenever they were together. The green light was the hope Gatsby had to be with Daisy but as for the mist, you couldn’t see it, meaning the hope was clouded. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship was just the illusion.

Tom and Myrtle: Tom and myrtle came to be a relationship as tom was looking for some excitement. Myrtle was perfect as he could hid her from his wife as she was from a  different social circle to what Daisy and Tom belonged. Myrtle was in the working class and was looking for someone higher. Tom tried every hard to hide them as they both were married to different people. Tom would get a apartment in New York City and then they would have their affair there. This relationship was an illusion as it was totally fake, just based off Tom wanting excitement. Up in the apartment they would pretend to be a married couple, up there it all seemed possible. “Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.” This shows the Myrtle changes her attitude and pretends to be like one of the wealthiest people. She is wording everyone around like someone of great importance would do. Tom and Myrtle just escape their real lives to be someone different once in awhile.

Gatsby and Nick: Gatsby and Nick’s relationship is quite simple. Gatsby only became noticed of Nick when he found out that he was related to his love of his life, even though they have live next to each other in East Egg. Gatsby wanted to use Nick to get close to Daisy and for Daisy to notice his home. Over time nick became obsessed with Gatsby. You could almost say that they became friends, but you would never know if their relationship stayed together because of Nick’s obsession or because if Gatsby had Nick he would keep seeing Daisy. Gatsby and Nick were completely different people but Gatsby brought nick to his worst, before he met Gatsby nick was trustfull and non judgemental but the everything changed after Nick’s obsession.

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. At the moment, a lot of what you have written is “plot retell”. Your strongest analysis is around Gatsby and the green light. Try to pick key moments, symbols, settings or evidence from the book that tells you something about the character and then analyse what that is. Try for 3 key things per character.

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