Drama The Great Gatsby Character Analysis
To view related topics Click Here.
The title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from an impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this lofty goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophistication—he dropped out of St. Olaf College after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was paying his tuition.
Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end
Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gatsby’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter 3. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduced to the reader.
Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about Gatsby’s childhood in Chapter 6 and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter 7). As a result, the reader’s first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel.
Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Gatsby is a masterful illusion.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.
Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate and active, and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s personality. Additionally, whereas Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.
If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922.
Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.
Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in Chapter 2. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.
Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.
After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.
Tom is, above all, characterized by physical and mental hardness. Physically, he has a large, muscle-bound, imposing frame. Tom’s body is a “cruel body” with “enormous power” that, as Nick explains, he developed as a college athlete. Tom’s strength and bulk give him an air of danger and aggression, as when he hurts Daisy’s finger and she calls him a “brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen…” Tom’s physical appearance is echoed in his mental inflexibility and single-minded way of thinking about the world. Just as Tom uncritically repeats racist things he’s read in books, he remains unshakable regarding his troubled marriage with Daisy. At the end of the book, even after it becomes clear that both Tom and Daisy have cheated on each other, Tom stubbornly maintains that they have always loved each other and that they always will, no matter what. Taken together, Tom’s physical and mental hardness produce a brutish personality that uses threats and violence to maintain control.
Tom’s brutish personality relates to the larger arc of his life. According to Nick, Tom peaked very early in his life. He was a nationally known football star in his youth, but after his time in the spotlight ended and fame faded away, everything else in Tom’s life felt like “an anticlimax.” In Chapter 1 Nick posits that Tom has always sought to recapture the thrill of his youth, and his failure to do so infuses his life with a sense of melancholy. It is perhaps this sense of melancholy that contributes to Tom’s evident victim complex. Early in the book, Tom describes a racist book he’s read. The book has clearly left him feeling anxious, and he even expresses his absurd belief that “the white race will be . . . utterly submerged.” A rich man, Tom has no reason to feel victimized in this way. Nor does he have reasonable cause to feel victimized when he learns about Daisy’s history with Gatsby, since he himself has engaged in a far worse extramarital affair. Nevertheless, jealousy gets the better of Tom, and he once again uses threats and demands to reassert a sense of control.
From her very first appearance in the novel, Jordan strikes Nick as mysterious, aloof, and alluring. Jordan belongs to the upper crust of society. Although she moved to the east coast from elsewhere, she has quickly risen among the social ranks to become a famous golfer—a sport played mainly among the wealthy. Yet Jordan’s rise to social prominence and affluence is founded on lies. Not only did she cheat to win her first major golf tournament, she’s also incurably dishonest. According to Nick, Jordan constantly bends the truth in order to keep the world at a distance and protect herself from its cruelty. Nick senses Jordan’s nature when he initially encounters her lounging on a couch with Daisy in Chapter 1. He writes: “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall.” Here Jordan appears distant, statuesque, and beautiful, even regal with her chin tilted into the air. Yet Nick’s description also lends her appearance an air of fragility, as if she’s posing.
Jordan’s cynical and self-centered nature marks her as one of the “new women” of the Roaring Twenties. Such new women were called “flappers,” and they became famous for flouting conventional standards of female behavior. Flappers distinguished themselves physically by bobbing their hair, dressing in short skirts, and wearing a lot of makeup. They also listened to jazz music, smoked cigarettes, openly drank alcohol, and drove cars. Most scandalous of all, flappers were known for their casual attitudes toward sexuality. Jordan’s presence in the novel draws attention to the social and political turbulence of the Jazz Age. In this sense, Jordan calls forth the larger social and historical background against which the tragic events of the novel unfold. Unlike Daisy, who leads a conventional life of marriage and children and doesn’t work (or even drink alcohol), Jordan represents a new path for women. Whereas Daisy is the object of men’s fantasy and idealism, Jordan exhibits a hard-hearted pragmatism that, for Nick at least, links her more forcefully to the real world.
Myrtle Wilson desperately seeks a better life than the one she has. She feels imprisoned in her marriage to George, a downtrodden and uninspiring man who she mistakenly believed had good “breeding.” Myrtle and George live together in a ramshackle garage in the squalid “valley of ashes,” a pocket of working-class desperation situated midway between New York and the suburbs of East and West Egg. Myrtle attempts to escape her social position by becoming a mistress to the wealthy Tom Buchanan, who buys her gifts (including a puppy) and rents her an apartment in Manhattan, where Myrtle play-acts an upper-class lifestyle, dressing up, throwing parties, expressing disgust for servants. Myrtle seems to believe Tom genuinely loves her, and would marry her if only Daisy would divorce him. Nick knows that Tom would never marry Myrtle, and the lopsidedness of the relationship makes Myrtle a more sympathetic character than she would be otherwise. To Tom, Myrtle is just another possession, and when she tries to assert her own will, he resorts to violence to put her in her place. Tom at once ensures and endangers her upwardly mobile desires.
Although The Great Gatsby is full of tragic characters who don’t get what they want, Myrtle’s fate is among the most tragic, as she is a victim of both her husband as well as people she’s never met. Myrtle is a constant prisoner. In the beginning of the book she’s stuck in the figurative prison of her social class and her depressing marriage. Midway through, however, this immaterial prison becomes literal when George, suspicious that she’s cheating on him, locks her in their rooms above the garage. This situation only amplifies her desperation to escape, which leads to her death in Chapter 7. When she escapes and runs out in front of Gatsby’s car, she does so because she saw Tom driving it earlier in the day; she thinks he’s behind the wheel. Daisy, who doesn’t know Myrtle, is driving the car when it strikes Myrtle down; Daisy doesn’t even stop to see what happened, and escapes without consequences. The lower class characters – Gatsby, Myrtle, and George – are thus essentially sacrificed for the moral failings of the upper class characters of Tom and Daisy.
One of the only working-class characters in The Great Gatsby, George Wilson owns an unsuccessful business in The Valley of Ashes, a poor neighborhood that lies between West Egg and Manhattan. In contrast to the physically impressive Tom, the beautiful Daisy, and the charming, colorful Gatsby, George is described as a “blond, spiritless man, anaemic and faintly handsome.” A once-promising young man, George has since been beaten into submission by poverty. His wife, Myrtle, is having an affair, which causes him great pain—although, it’s important to note that George does not know who Myrtle’s affair partner is. However, George holds onto the hope of a different future. He dreams of a new life in the American West, where he and his wife can start anew, repair their marriage, and find financial and material stability. George’s dream of escape complements Gatsby’s dream of inclusion, and by the end of the novel, both men are victims of the illusory American dream and the wealthy society that they orbit.
As the novel progresses, George is perhaps the only character who truly fears punishment for his role in contributing to a morally decrepit society. He equates the watchful eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg with God, saying “God sees everything.” But George has little power to change his circumstances in a society so burdened with extreme wealth inequality, a sad reality that is exhibited in his fateful actions at the end of the novel. In an attempt to get justice for his wife’s death, George seeks out the owner of the car that hit and killed Myrtle, and he is mistakenly led to believe that Gatsby was at fault for the death. Thus, George murders Gatsby and then turns the gun on himself, allowing the Buchanans to escape the consequences of their actions. Here, George becomes a tragic symbol of the powerlessness of the working class in America, and the Buchanans are made into an example of how the wealthy can cause destruction to their communities with no repercussions.
Although he only appears in three brief scenes, Owl Eyes plays a key role in Fitzgerald’s exploration of truth, lies, and superficiality throughout the novel. He first appears half-drunk in Gatsby’s library, and Nick quickly begins referring to the man as “Owl Eyes” because of the large, round glasses that he wears. The name Owl Eyes itself carries symbolic value and offers clues to the reader about the complex nature of his character. Owls traditionally function as emblems of wisdom and intuition, two qualities which Owl Eyes seems to possess. Beyond his presence in the library, a place full of knowledge, his interest in discovering who Gatsby truly is reinforces intellectually-inclined identity. At the same time, however, some cultures perceive owls as harbingers of death, and this symbolism adds an ominous layer to Owl Eyes’s character. The second component of Nick’s made-up name for the man, “Eyes,” calls attention to the idea of perception. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald references eyes and seeing as a means of commenting on man’s relationship with reality. The billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg is perhaps the most famous symbol of this dynamic, emphasizing the bleak, senseless world that many of the novel’s characters aim to ignore. The parallels that Fitzgerald creates between the glasses on the billboard and Owl Eyes’s glasses invites the possibility that he may have the ability to see the truth about Gatsby when no one else can.
While the symbolism of Owl Eyes’ name does reflect the nature of his character to some extent, he does not become the prophetic figure that he initially appears to be. Instead, his insights into Gatsby’s identity only reveal partial truths, and this choice allows Fitzgerald to emphasize just how deeply the superficiality of Gatsby’s world runs. Owl Eyes excitedly reports to Nick and Jordan that, contrary to his assumptions, Gatsby’s library is full of real books. This detail is enough to convince him of Gatsby’s authenticity, even though he also acknowledges that none of the books have cut pages and are therefore all unread. He appreciates the commitment to upholding an image of wealth without bothering to inquire further about Gatsby’s mysterious origin story. In this moment, Owl Eyes’s perceptive abilities only go so far.
The symbolic aspect of his name that Owl Eyes does live up to, however, is as an omen of doom. Although nothing tragic occurs in the library itself, the unsettling quality that his presence brings to the scene hints at the idea that Gatsby’s complex web of truth and lies may be the cause of his downfall. The brief scene outside the party in which Owl Eyes is involved in a car wreck more explicitly highlights his association with death and destruction, especially since he reveals that he was not the driver of the car. His relative lack of involvement in this moment calls back to his identity as a witness or observer, but his cluelessness about the car emphasizes the same perceptive limits that he displayed in the library. Owl Eyes appears one final time as the only guest at Gatsby’s funeral, once again accompanying death and destruction. The sympathy he expresses at the gravesite distinguishes Owl Eyes from many of the other partygoers who fail to acknowledge Gatsby’s passing.
Ewing Klipspringer is a young man who frequently attends Gatsby’s parties and essentially becomes an uninvited resident in the house. Nick explains that, over time, Klipspringer has earned the nickname “the boarder” as a result of his ongoing presence at the Gatsby estate. Although Gatsby knows who Klipspringer is, they do not appear to have a particularly close relationship, and this dynamic highlights the exploitative nature of the partygoers more generally. He takes advantage of Gatsby’s generosity to an extreme level, wandering the house looking disheveled and treating it as if it were his own. This behavior indicates a lack of initiative and care as well as a complete disregard for others. While these qualities certainly describe Klipspringer, Fitzgerald implies that they belong to the culture of the era more generally. Many of the novel’s characters, ranging from Tom and Daisy to the average partygoer, prove themselves to be reckless and often have a blasé attitude toward the world around them. Creating one figure who embodies the most extreme versions of these characteristics, however, allows Fitzgerald to highlight the drastic impact that such a culture can have on the individual.
Beyond the significance he brings to the novel as an individual, Klipspringer’s transactional relationship with Gatsby offers information about how the unwitting host engages with the outside world. The scene in which Gatsby demands that Klipspringer play the piano to entertain Daisy and Nick emphasizes his overall ambivalence toward him and the vast majority of his party guests. He does not seem to care that Klipspringer essentially resides in his house rent-free, so long as his unofficial tenant does what he asks of him. This simple exchange functions as a kind of transaction between the two men which calls attention to the superficiality pervading the characters’ lives. Gatsby’s attitude toward Klipspringer also emphasizes just how focused he is on capturing Daisy’s attention. The empty nature of Gatsby’s relationship with Klipspringer is reciprocated near the end of the novel as Nick tries to get people to come to the funeral. Initially thrilled when Klipspringer calls, Nick believes that “the boarder” intends to honor his former host. Instead, Klipspringer merely asks that a pair of his shoes be sent from Gatsby’s house to his new address, a selfish request which Nick promptly dismisses. He shows very little emotion toward the news of Gatsby’s death, and this reaction reinforces the transactional nature of their relationship.
Meyer Wolfsheim is a friend of Gatsby’s who is involved in gambling, illegal alcohol sales, and other mysterious business dealings. Unwilling to reveal personal details about himself, Wolfsheim comes across as a particularly ominous figure. His presence in the novel serves as a reminder of the moral corruption that plagues the era, but perhaps even more importantly, he gives the reader access to key information about Gatsby and Nick that they may not otherwise have. The close relationship between Wolfsheim and Gatsby, for example, offers insight into the true nature of Gatsby’s wealth. Although Wolfsheim is tight-lipped about the exact nature of his business deals during his lunch with Gatsby and Nick in the city, Gatsby reveals later that Wolfsheim is a gambler and was responsible for fixing the World Series in 1919. This detail not only emphasizes the expansive nature of his underground operations, it also emphasizes his connection to the real-life crime boss Arther Rothstein. Just like his fictional counterpart, Rothstein worked to fix the 1919 World Series and eventually became a leading figure in New York’s Jewish Mafia. By drawing inspiration from a figure as infamous as Rothstein, Fitzgerald is able to increase the stakes of Wolfsheim’s character, especially for a twentieth-century audience. This choice is particularly important because Wolfsheim’s corrupt behavior ultimately reflects poorly on Gatsby. Their close relationship insinuates that Gatsby is also manipulative and dishonest, qualities which he tries to hide throughout the course of the novel. In addition to revealing Gatsby’s dark side, Fitzgerald also uses Wolfsheim as a vehicle for highlighting Nick’s judgmental nature. He is quick to make assumptions about Gatsby’s friend during their lunch, and this detail calls attention to the biases Nick holds as the novel’s narrator.
The second major component of Wolfsheim’s character is his Jewish heritage, and the stereotypes which Nick, and ultimately Fitzgerald, use to describe him contribute to the racial tensions that underly the narrative. While racial politics is not one of The Great Gatsby’s most obvious themes, Tom’s emphasis on white supremacy and the derogatory depictions of non-white characters make the topic a crucial one to consider. The characterization of Wolfsheim throughout is a prime example of this trend and works to reinforce the rampant antisemitism of the era. When Nick first meets Wolfsheim, the first details that he notices are his nose and his eyes. Both of these features are often emphasized in derogatory caricatures of Jews, and they often evoke a dark and ominous mood. Another stereotype that Wolfsheim embodies is greed and a focus on money. This negative depiction of him throughout the novel calls attention to the fear and distrust that characters like Tom and, to an extent, Nick have toward racial “others.
In the end, the one man who does accept Wolfsheim, Gatsby, fails to receive the same support in return. Despite Nick’s best efforts to convince him to attend the funeral, Wolfsheim refuses and insists that he should not get involved. This outcome suggests that even the closest of partnerships or friendships are not immune to the sense of emptiness that pervades the world of the novel.
The Great Gatsby Full Book Summary
Drama The Great Gatsby Character Analysis