How Does Fitzgerald Present Love In The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about love; he also wrote about class, wealth, the past, dreams, and numerous other themes but always his books were about love. All four of Fitzgerald’s completed novels explore love in the vivacious early twentieth-century world of alcohol, parties, and dreams. The second of his books, The Beautiful and Damned, follows lovers Gloria and Anthony as their marriage falls prey to alcoholism, financial difficulties, and class struggles despite their dreams of resurrecting their initial love. The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s most renowned novel, similarly traces a past love between Gatsby and Daisy through a world of parties, infidelity, wealth, and status. In both novels, Fitzgerald’s creative and extensive use of literary …show more content…
Known as a land of dreams, America is where hard work, determination, and ability provide the opportunity for a better life, yet almost always that vision of a better future intertwines together love, status and wealth. To Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan was not merely a person, but the embodiment of love that he could attain with the correct status and wealth, which he could earn through his own achievements and abilities. Consequently, when Gatsby dreamed of Daisy he wed his hopes for a future to her and fell in love not with a person, but with the idea of happiness in the future. The truth was that Gatsby did not know who the real Daisy was, he dreamt of a perfect person with which he could live out his dream then tied that image so tightly around Daisy that they were inseparable. When Gatsby met Daisy for the first time in five years, Daisy unknowingly carried the expectations of perfection that Gatsby imbued in her, and “there must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams–not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion” (95). Daisy was incomparable to the image of her that Gatsby fell in love with, so from the moment they met again, “Daisy tumbled short of his dreams” clumsily untangling the person from Gatsby’s dreams. This was “not through her own fault,” but because Gatsby saw her as a dream, not as a naturally flawed person. As a result, Gatsby was going to be disappointed no matter what: either she left him or she could not live up to his expectations if she stayed. From the moment he decided to love Daisy, Gatsby was unaware of what it is to love someone; he simply loved the idea of her and everything she represented. In many ways, Gloria is similar to Gatsby in her dreams of love for she had beautiful dreams of love, marriage, and children when she married
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