The Great Gatsby A Pursuit of Agony Essays

The Great Gatsby A Pursuit of Agony Essays The Great Gatsby A Pursuit of Agony Essay The Great Gatsby A Pursuit of Agony Essay Essay Topic: The Great Gatsby Our most flawless and immaculate aspiration for the future is within us all. We all maintain a ravishing dream for the future that we aspire to reach. From childhood, we are collectively taught to pursue these wishes. Surely such a dream, with its promises of jubilance and fulfillment ought to be vigorously sought after and made a reality. Yet, such a conception is nowhere better refuted against than in the prosperous, plentiful world of The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald. Indeed, within such a world, each characters pursuance their dreams results in their utter disappointment and agony. Whether it be Tom Buchanans constant dissatisfaction with the future he creates for himself, Mr.Gatsby’s inability to accept the love he so chased, or the anguish felt by Daisy Buchanan after gaining exactly what she had believed would fulfill her dream, one can only conclude that The Great Gatsby argues that such an aggressive devotion to our fantasies will result in nothing more than our suffering and frustration. The first hint of Fitzgerald’s denouncement of such a pursuit of dreams begins with our first description of Tom Buchanan, an offensively affluent socialite who is able to bring about any future he could possibly desire. Our first characterization of him is as someone who â€Å"had spent a year [with his wife] in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together† (Fitzgerald 6). Yet it is Tom’s mistress (Myrtle Wilson) for which he stops drifting around the world. Tom, with his attraction to power and status, is clearly allured by the prospect of feeling like the object of social envy, a prospect he believes his mistress will bring him (as is shown by his propensity to thrust her presence onto as many people as possible). However, Tom’s the social envy his mistress brings him is not enough to let him feel powerful. Perhaps the clearest manifestation of