Nick: Nick Carraway was a young man born in Minnesota who studied at Yale and fought in WW1, shortly after returning from the war he moved to New York to learn the bond businesses. He reveals himself as an honest guy who reserves all judgement, he conveys this at the start of the book in the first page “In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgements”. Although he isn’t rich he has connections to the wealthy elite society like Tom and Daisy. As the summer goes on he meets people who are a lot different to himself, throughout the book he realizes how different and careless these people in the East are and how they are not always what they seem from the outside. He truly notices this after the deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle and Wilson when he becomes more aware and regretful. To Nick this truly shows the selfish, false and materialistic side of Daisy and Tom and how Gatsby got lured into their trapped and devoured him to a consequence that ended his life. He sees this a lot clearer after Gatsby dies and tries and protect gatsby’s legacy against the harsh society because Nick truly believed Gatsby was better than them, he says this the last time he visits Gatsby “They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”?. After the chain of these events Nick changes as a person, he may be more judgmental but he also knows he will never turn into people in the elite west egg cause he knows that’s not a life he wants to continue living around.

Daisy:

Daisy Buchanan is first introduced as a kind, gentle woman who is happily married to Tom and enjoys her life on the west side of Long Island. Although she comes across gentle and angel like she does alternate between personalities hugley. She is first introduced into the novel as a floozy, and easily controllable she uses the quote  “I hope she’ll be a fool,” she says, “that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” In this quote she refers to her daughter; this shows her set of mind. She is implying that the world is no place for a girl or woman and to be beautiful and attractive will get you a lot further if you marry a man with money and status not for love. This is when we truly see why she married Tom and how superficial and fake her life is. However she states to Gatsby she finds love after their reunion but this means nothing because she has no intention to be with him. West egg isn’t where she belongs, she cannot be apart of the “new money” because society would just not accept it and neither does Daisy.

Gatsby: James Gatsby had grown up as a guy who knows what he wants for himself he is determined and doesn’t let anything get in the way of that. He is shown to have a secret and almost dark side to him. But after being introduced to him in chapter three we then truly see how he is a gentleman who is lonely. Gatsby is represented as a rich guy who could get anything he wants “Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, sliver shirt and gold colored tie.”but as the book goes on it peels back the hidden secrets Gatsby is living with and how he presents himself is not always what it seems. Gatsby going to war was a huge life decision to him because he knew if he went he would leave a very important part of his life (Daisy), but throughout the book we see that Daisy didn’t leave because he went to war, she left him because his money and wealth didn’t meet her needs. After the war Gatsby then devotes his life to win back Diasys love, so he buys a house in long Island “ Gatsby bought that house so he was across the harbour from Daisy” This where we truly realise that everything Gatsby he has done with his life, from the moment he met her, has been for Daisy. He has had no other purpose. In my opinion the day that Jay Gatsby met Daisy is the day he changed as a person.

The illusion:

Gatsby: The idea of the American dream continuously shows up in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses this term almost as a prologue so show us what is going to happen throughout the book. Fitzgerald says that those who pursue the American Dream can never be satisfied because the American dream makes you want to strive for something more than what we already have. As the author, this is how Fitzgerald looked over Jay Gatsby’s life and the underlying fact that the American Dream ended it. Gatsby was born on a small farm in North Dakota, he grew up with a goal, with a drive to make something of himself but after meeting Daisy his life got thrown off track and focused more on what he wanted than what he needed. The way I interpreted the book is Gatsby achieved the dream of the American Dream but his idea of the American Dream was to attain Daisy Buchanan not to make a life for himself. Gatsby buys a house and moves to the east egg of long island to move closer to attain his dream of having Daisy, but as the book goes on we soon realise that this dream he has dedicated his life for slipped through his fingers before he even got it. Gatsbys says to Nick in one of the last chapters “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” Nick replies“You can’t repeat the past” but Gatsby’s responses with “well, of course, you can “ because he believes he can pick right up where he left off five years ago but things have changed, what Fitzgerald is trying to convey is that Gatsby is in an in  an illusion that he will move to East egg and Daisy will come running back.

Daisy: Daisy helps me understand the idea of an illusion because she is presented as a rose. “Shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is….” we think of a rose as being pretty and beautiful. They look like a perfect symbol of love. But when you really reach out and actually pick up the rose, it pricks you with the thorns that you don’t see until you get close enough. The grotesqueness of the rose becomes a metaphor for Gatsby’s elusive dream of Daisy Buchanan as worthy of his love and devotion, but it also expresses Daisy’s true nature. Gatsby finally realises this once it’s too late, he now sees that he only looks like the perfect woman. In reality, loving and wanting her is a dangerous thing. Her elite status is her thorn and makes her unattainable.

Nick: Nick is one of the few characters in the novel that doesn’t show an ilison, although since moving to Long Island he sees everyone else’s. Nick see’s Gatsby’s illusion of Daisy and tries to tell him you can’t take back time, nor erase it. Though in Nick’s eyes the illusion is the people around him, after moving to Long Island he notices how stuck up and superficial the lives of these people are and he has the knowledge not to fall into this trap. We see this closely after Nick breaks off his relationship with Jordan Baker before he goes back to the midwest because he is sick of the naive, glittering life of New York. In my opinion Nick is not in an illusion and that is why he moved back to the Midwest after gatsby’s Funeral because he is sick of these people around him being “careless” and “leaving other people to clean up the mess that they had made.”

Relationships:

Daisy and Gatsby: Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan’s love is a driving force of the novels plot, their long lost connection or more specifically Gatsby’s obsession for Daisy is the very heart of the book. Five years before the novel started, Jay Gatz was station in Louisville before going to fight in WW1. This is where he met Daisy Fay, a beautiful young woman who catches his eye straight away, but he soon realises she has high expectations and he falls into a lie for being someone in her social class. Gatsby maintained the lie, which allowed their relationship to bloom and soon enough he fell in love with her but the relationship was fake because he want telling Daisy the truth. The summer love didn’t last long since Gatsby had to leave for the war and by the time he returned to the US in 1919, Daisy had already gone off and married Tom Buchanan. He finds this out and knew Daisy would of only married him for his money, so he dedicated his life making a life for  himself and chased after Daisy. This is where he found himself living on long island across the Bay from Daisy.

Daisy and Tom: Daisy and Tom Buchanan live in the West Egg of Long island, throughout the novel it is clear to see that they have an unstable and fake relationship.Tom and Daisy both come from wealthy backgrounds, they enjoy the thought of being married to each other, but they know their love isn’t real. Their relationship is toxic and unhealthy yet they seem to have no intention of fixing it, this is showed in the affairs they have. Although they know their relationship is like this they still come across happily married and continue living their perfect lives. But in the last few chapters of the book we actually see how perfect they are for each other. This is because Daisy doesn’t know how to love, she falls in love with the the idea of money not person and she lives her whole life chasing material things like a social status and wealth. Tom on the other hand is only married to daisy because of her beauty, and the nice idea of showing people he is married to her, but after the affairs he has had we know that his love for her isn’t pure. Nick sees this from an outside perspective and states they  “weren’t happy…and yet they weren’t unhappy either”.But by the end of the book and the chain of events that have happened they know their marriage is important, since it reassures their status and wealth.

Myrtle and George Wilson: Myrtle and George live in the valley of ashes and run the car repair shop. After reading the novel we find out how similar Daisy and Myrtle are. Myrtle Wilson is not satisfied with her life and is constantly trying to find a better option, this is when Tom comes into the picture while she is in a vulnerable time. She is desperate for her life to change so she has an affair with Tom thinking she will be able to move up the Social Ladder and her life will change. Meanwhile George, is a content man and tries to do everything he can to please Myrtle but she is oblivious to it. When we first get introduced to George and Myrtle their relationship seems fractured, with vastly different personalities and motivations. We get the sense right away that their marriage is in trouble, and conflict between the two is about to happen. One night the couple have a fight and as a yellow car is approaching their home Myrtle  runs out on the road shouting for help thinking that it is Tom. In a short span of time Myrtle gets hit and is instantly killed.