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Sarah Mye 10/5/11 AP English The Great Gatsby Essay

 In the novel //The Great Gatsby// by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick says: “…Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” Gatsby had a dream that only he believed he could attain. The dust clouded Gatsby’s reality which made him believe he could win Daisy’s heart. With his mind clouded by the dust, Gatsby went on believing and working with all his energy to acquire the love of who he believed to be a lost soul mate. Gatsby’s ignorance did not allow for him to see that Daisy would not leave her husband, for in this time it would be considered immoral and frowned upon and Daisy doesn’t want to damage her status.  Dust collects over time and can sometimes be tough to see. For Gatsby this is true. The foul dust started collecting when he first met Daisy and continued to build up throughout the novel. As the dust piles up, others can see how it will play out in the end between Gatsby and Daisy but Gatsby still can only see himself with Daisy. The foul dust that preys on Gatsby is created by Daisy in the fact that she caused Gatsby to fall in love with her. The dust is at first, the love Gatsby has for Daisy which clouds his judgments. He comes to believe that Daisy is the only one for him. With this he becomes narrow-minded and insecure thinking that if only he had her, then he’d be happy. His love for Daisy becomes an obsession. He moves his house so that he lives directly across the water from her. This creates a feeling of closeness with her, building false hope, although he hasn’t seen or talked to her in about five years. Gatsby throws the most elaborate parties every weekend with no extent to what he’ll pay on them. In hosting these parties, his only hope is that one day Daisy will come to one of them. He mingles around, slickly mentioning Daisy to see if anyone knows who she is. If they don’t know her, he moves on to the next group of people to find anyone who might know any little thing about her. His obsession for Daisy’s love and the fact that it is and has been his only goal for the last five years becomes the dust that preys on Gatsby. Everything Gatsby ends up doing is for Daisy. He lives for Daisy and Daisy only.  Love was the first thing that Gatsby got caught up in with Daisy. After that his dreams were clouded by lingering dust that became thicker and thicker for Gatsby to see the truth. From the time that Gatsby meets Daisy to his death, false hope, narrow-mindedness, insecurity, and ignorance is what preys on Gatsby. When Gatsby goes to war, they write letters back and forth to one another. When Daisy stops responding to his letters, Gatsby becomes depressed thinking he has nothing to live for and tries to die in the war. He then believes if he had Daisy, he would be happy because he convinces himself that she is the only thing that can make him happy. This is when the dust comes into play. He becomes narrow-minded in the fact that he believes Daisy is the only one for him and the only thing that can make him happy. He creates a goal; the only goal he has for the rest of his life which is to win Daisy’s love. He becomes so clouded by the dust that Daisy is the only thing he yearns for. He puts all his time and energy to wining her over. Gatsby’s insecurity preys on him in the fact that he doesn’t allow anyone to get close with him. He lies to his so called friends because he doesn’t want the truth about himself to come out. This part of the dust clouds his train of thought because he lied to Daisy, the one he supposable loves. He wants to make himself better because when Gatsby first dated Daisy, he had very little money but he wanted to show Daisy that he could support her. He wanted to change almost everything about himself so that Daisy would like him because he didn’t feel like he was good enough for her. Gatsby was also clouded by dust in the essence of ignorance and false hope. Gatsby wants Daisy so badly. When Gatsby and Daisy meet five years after they haven’t spoken a word to one another, Daisy is already married and has a daughter. Everything that Daisy does is carefully thought out in the fact that she wants people to think highly of her and she doesn’t want to be looked at the wrong way. If she left Tom for Gatsby she knows that in her society it would be immoral and frowned upon. She would never do this to her reputation. Gatsby’s want of Daisy is unattainable but Gatsby himself cannot or doesn’t want to realize it because he wants her so bad. Towards the end of the novel, Gatsby declared his love for Daisy in front of Tom saying Daisy never loved Tom. When Nick visits Gatsby after he pulls into the driveway returning form Daisy’s house, Gatsby says: ‘“Nothing happened”, he said wanly. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then she turned out the light (pg. 147).”’ This is when all Gatsby hope comes crashing down because Daisy was the only thing that he wanted. She was the only thing he worked to get, and now that he didn’t have her, he had nothing to live for.  Jay Gatsby was a man who was on the verge of having a bright future. When he meets Daisy the dust starts to collect and everything changes. All his dreams alter into one, which was to have Daisy. He believes that to be happy, he must have Daisy. Gatsby’s judgment was clouded by the dust and he could only see his dream. He could not see any other way of how things could and were going to turn out. Gatsby’s ignorance did not permit for him to see that Daisy would not leave Tom. It was false hope that was keeping Gatsby going because Daisy was the only thing he was living for.