Gatsby: Nature of Romantic Love Essay

The Great Gatsby is a story somewhat a cosmos, Gatsby, who is stuck in alternate trulyity. He is stuck in a past life and wants to remain in it forever. The Great Gatsby reflects a story ab show up the great Ameri rotter dream and, as some may view, a beautiful hit the sack story. The Great Gatsby is not a story about perfect love. In fact, it actu eithery mocks the notion that love having no flaws. Fitzgerald writes about the rot of love and illustrates the obstacles and dangers of corrupted love. The love presented in The Great Gatsby is wrong. Fitzgerald depicts the nature of love in the novel to revolve around obsession, self-destruction, and greed. The Great Gatsby lacks true love and adherence to make it a perfect love story. Gatsby is a character with an unrealistic conscience. He is blinded by an melodic theme of love that only he can see. The love he sees is not true love, but in fact an obsession with lust. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies human behavior states in The Brain In Love, amative love is an addictiona perfectly horrible addiction when its going poorly. And indeed it has all the characteristics of an addiction.You focus on the person, you obsessively think about them, you crave them. This quote taken from a TED Talk portrays Gatsbys nature of love perfectly. He is addicted to the conception of Daisy. The addiction is horrible because all he does is focus on her and only her. Even though he has not spoken to her in years by and by the war, he still craves her. It is very trig that Fitzgerald wanted the audience to notice Gatsbys frightening obsession with Daisy. He follows her every move. He becomes rich for her and buys a mansion for he and holds countless exorbitant parties, all because of her. Gatsby says, Look at this. Here is a lot of clippings-about you (Fitzgerald 90). Gatsby documents Daisys life. He creates a scrapbook with countless pages regarding Daisys life. He collects every possible social occasion th at relates to Daisy. He alters his life to make Daisy love him. Infatuation then develops in a specificpsychobiological patternbeginning with intrusive thinking (The Nature of amative Love).This applies directly to Gatsbys behavior. He consumes his time thinking about Daisy and planning his life accordingly to Daisys likes, dislikes, and interests. And after be rejected, the obsession worsens. Daisy has countless flaws including being indecisive, cowardly, and materialistic. She is not the type of person someone would typically fall in love with. But once again, the element of Gatsbys obsession comes into play. His obsession causes cecity and he is unable to see Daisys flaws. In Helen Fishers The Nature of Romantic Love she states, But the limerent casts these flaws aside and fixates on those characteristics that he or she finds unique and charming (The Nature of Romantic Love). Gatsbys fixation on Daisy obliges him to only see the good in Daisy that was barely even there whatsoe vermore. She doesnt have the best qualities. She has the power to leave Tom, yet she doesnt. Why? Because she has everything she needs by staying with him.He supplies her with money, luxuries, and lives a comfortable life with him. Daisy puts her wants before the feelings and regards of others. Gatsby is sightless when it comes to pointing out Daisys negative qualities. The love presented in The Great Gatsby is self-destructive. It breaks Gatsby and forces him to partake in illegal activities to impress his significant other. The terrible obsession Gatsby has for Daisy causes him to not see the real Daisy. He is in love with the Daisy from the past. This essentially ruins him. He is not in love with the cowardly, shallow Daisy, but the sweet, comforting one from the past. Gatsbys reality distorts after Daisy leaves him. Helen Fisher states in her TED talk, You distort reality. Your willingness to take enormous risks to win this person. Gatsby does just this. He corrupts and endanger s his life because of his willingness to do anything for Daisy. He misrepresents his reality and does not see any harm in participating in illegal things. Gatsby takes risks for Daisy.In Helen Fishers TED talk she explains that this is a factor of love. Fitzgerald illustrates this factor in his novel by developing Jay Gatsbys character into someone who will take massive risks. He is willing to jeopardize his own life to impress Daisy. Tom Buchanan says, Thats one of his diminished stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasnt far wrong (Fitzgerald 134). In this statement, Tom is reflecting his opinions on Gatsby, believe that Gatsbycontributes to unjust acts. Tom was correct. Gatsby does partake in illegal activities and slowly destroys his reputation by doing so. People know of Gatsbys misdemeanors. This is just another example of how unethical the love that exists in the novel really is. The love depicted in The Great Gatsby revolves around greed. Th e environment Daisy was raised in caused her to only view a materialistic life.Helen Fisher writes, Culture, for example, plays an essential role in ones choice of partner and the timing and process of courting. Daisy grows up in a very luxurious environment, where money is a factor that contributes to a persons personality. Why does Daisy suddenly fall linchpin in love with Gatsby when he in conclusion acquires a lot of money? Daisys composition of love is blinded with greed. For many years, she forgets about Gatsby when he goes to war and focuses and devotes her life to Tom Buchanan. Tom, a man of wealth, gives Daisy all she need, except love. Tom has multiple affairs with other mistresses, yet this does not bother Daisy. She is content living her life with Tom until Gatsby reveals himself. She falls back in love with Gatsby due to the amount of money he has. Only then does she decide to pursue a relationship with him. Daisy acts like a coward in the novel. Greed is what she h as fallen in love with, not Gatsby nor Tom. Daisys greed gets in the way of the love that could have been between Gatsby and herself. Daisys importance in life orbits around material comforts.She says, Theyre such beautiful shirts it makes me sad because I have never seen such beautiful shirts (Fitzgerald 89). The stunning silk shirts represent all of the material luxuries Daisy obsesses over. She has fallen in love with the idea of Gatsby, but not him. Both Daisy and Gatsby confuse greed with love. They long for money and material possessions and corrupt love to fulfill their American Dreams. He believes money will bring him anything, even Daisys love. Fitzgerald writes in his novel, Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths so that he could come over some afternoon to a terra incognitas garden (78). Gatsby spends hundreds of thousands buying a mansion out of gree d. He is ravenous for Daisys attention. Daisy represents a life filled with luxuries and money and essentially, the American Dream. Gatsby was never able to let that idea go so he devotes the majority of his time to Daisy.Fitzgeralds novel represents a life full of corruption and mimics the idea of love. It intertwines the ideas of obsession, destruction, and greed among the characters. Gatsby and Daisys relationship focuses on the materialism of the era. Instead of truly falling in love with one another, they fell in love with the idea of each other. Gatsby fell in love with the Daisy that no longer existed and Daisy fell in love with what Gatsby represented greed, money, corruption, and luxuries. The love presented in The Great Gatsby was not love, but an unhealthy infatuation of obsession and greed. Fitzgerald describes the nature of love to be unscrupulous. The characters were not in love, but rather in love with a perfect idea of one another that did not exist.