Great Gatsby Essay Question #3

How does Fitzgerald’s characterization create a tone around the theme of happiness?  What is Fitzgerald’s attitude toward happiness?  Does it depend on love, on external markers such as wealth, on repairing or atoning for the past, or on something that is unattainable?

Happiness is the feeling of being mentally/ emotionally positive. While reading Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", none of the characters seemed "happy" to me. Throughout the whole story happiness had to depend on something; for Gatsby it was the past, for Daisy it was money, for Tom it was two women, for Jordan it was Nick and for Nick it was Gatsby's friendship. Fitzgerald tried his hardest through out the whole book to make his characters happy at least once, yet everything comes with a price. In my honest opinion, all the characters tried to be ecstatic, positive but money always got in their way. Money is truly the root to all evil, yet for a few people (Daisy and Tom) it was all the happiness they could ever need.

I felt as though Nick was the reader. He had his opinions yet they couldn't be voiced out just as much as we do. To the readers, Nick was our ray of sunshine/ happiness throughout the whole book. Maybe this is why Fitzgerald made Nick as a character, to relate him to us. The readers dealt with Nick through the whole book and read all the ordeals that occurred.  However a nagging feeling told me that he wasn't happy, perhaps it was because he was lonely. This was then when Fitzgerald gave us Jordan and later introduced Gatsby. Jordan WAS supposed to be the woman to sweep Nick off his feet and be tied down, yet issues like money (Daisy, Tom and Gatsby?) got in the way of that. Gatsby, however, is Nick's muse, his best friend. Nick acted 'himself' with Gatsby and didn't let money,love, the past or something that is unattainable get in the way.

Gatsby is a different story though. Gatsby wanted to live in the past, the past to Gatsby was his happiness and what he attempted to recuperate. However, Gatsby's past was living in the future with a husband and kid. Fitzgerald perhaps attempted to make Gatsby the American Dream but every dream has its flaws and Gatsby's flaw was Daisy. He wanted to finally be happy being with her and, now that I think about it, Fitzgerald wanted the readers to be happy by seeing romance between them. Money got in the way, as usual, for this.

Tom and Daisy are the definition of bad people. Tom had two women to himself yet he was never happy. His happiness revolved around alcohol to push his worries away. Daisy wasn't happy either, she had a cheating husband. Daisy was finally going to be "happy" with the man she "loves" yet I believe this isn't true. I believe that Daisy never loved Gatsby, just like Gatsby she was trying to re spark an old flame. In some way that made her happy, to re spark something long forgotten. Her other love however, wealth and power, killed her beloved. Daisy left on an extended vacation with Tom to be happy. Her love for Gatsby was never real, she must've just wanted to make him happy.

Fitzgerald must've thought that love wasn't true. All his characters believed in it yet in some way it got crumbled. Money was the root of all evil for most of these relationships. Money/greed  and the past killed Gatsby. He wanted the past but his past wanted money. "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" (The Great Gatsby Chapter 9) Tom and Daisy loved nothing more then themselves and money, that was their definition of happy. Maybe that's why Daisy wished for her daughter to be a beautiful fool, because that way she doesn't get hurt, like Gatsby did, and can just be happy and rich and not worry about another thing. Fitzgerald's characterization didn't know a thing about the true meaning of happy, their happiness revolves around the artificial things, money.