The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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His mansion as I sais his very luxurious and fitted out with all the most expensive stuff, his parties have places every weekend and it's like a legendary event because every one known Gatsby's parties but no one known Gatsby. His parties are spectacular and people from all the cities around came to take advantage and enjoy the house, the swimming-pool and the banquet. Indeed nobody is invited but everybody comes and benefit of a great treatment. We can say that Gatsby is a local celebrity and there is lots of rumors about how he's gotten to be so wealthy. He's kind of great in that way.

He seems to live a dream-life existence but that's more complicated than that because he is doing it for a particular reason and not no be popular or something else. He is doing it for Daisy. However all those “friends” turn out to simply be people who take advantage of his generosity and riches. So there's a second way to look at these adjective and Nick is seeing this way of Gatsby like someone great. I have to say that althought Nick doesn't approve all the manners and the Gatsby's means and way of acting, he knows that Gatsby is driven by a noble cause which is love. In fact Jay Gatsby is a nervous boy in love because he's acting like a little boy when he is going to meet for the first time since 5 years Daisy. He want to run away, to leave her alone, he doesn't know how to react and he is very stressed and nervous. He is in love since the first day and he's yearning for love. This love is pure and authentic, he goes all in for his love. So he's great because no other person love Daisy in the way he does and he is facing is fear to be somebody ordinary for her, just like Tom said “Mr Nobody from Nowhere”. Furthermore the magnificience of his dreams is also great because his dreams are even more ambitious than all the other things. In fact he is believing that through the force of his will, he could wipe out the five years between Daisy and him and repeat the past. We can see that when he said : “Can't repeat the past?” […] “Why of course you can”.

Nick uses the adjective “colossal” to describe this dream, so we can see that Nick is believing in Gatsby and in his dreams. He's supporting him even if he had to take risks. Gatsby is great by the nature of his dreams.

In an other part, Nick believes that Gatsby is truly a good person. He thinks and he knows that he is generous, loyal and sincere. That's why he said : “......................”

Finally, I think Gatsby can be considered as a hero for two main reasons and I consider Gatsby as the only hero of the novel.

First, Jay Gatsby is a romantic hero because he sacrificed his whole life for Daisy, the only woman he loved. After the war, Gatsby's life centered around one main goal : he wanted to win back Daisy's heart. So all the time of the parties and the luxurious mansion was planned to made his dream came true. His dream was to get back what Daisy and him used to loose during his war time. He dreamed of repeating the past, so he bought his house to be close to her, he held parties hoping she would come to one of them, he asked Nich to invite her to tea so he could see her again. Until the end Jay thought that Daisy will leave Tom to run away with him but that did not happen. He believed that Daisy needed him but she left town. Everything Jay did, he did it for Daisy.

The power of Gatsby's illusion and Gatsby's dream is so strong, however, he dies still believing in it , waiting for Diasy's call. That makes him a romantic hero.

I studied the Aristote's definition of a tragic hero which matches with Jay Gatsby's situation.

In fact, according to Aristote, there are a number of characteristics that identify a tragic hero. This hero must cause his own downfall, his fate is not deserved and his punishment exceeds the crime. He also must be of noble stature and have greatness. These are all characteristics of Gatsby. So Jay Gatsby is a tragic hero according to Aristote's definition.

Indeed Jay Gatsby is an enormously rich man who came from nothing and rise up to a high status, he also rises to a zenith of success and then falling to ruin at the end of the text.

In fact at the end of the text when Daisy hitted and killed Myrtle, he took the blame whereas it was Daisy who killed Myrtle and Tom who was having an affair with Myrtle. And Gatsby was killed for two crimes where he was not the author; he caused his own downfall. Furthermore Daisy left the city and she didn't even go to Gatsby's funeral.

To finish, we can say that Jay is Nick's hero because Nick idealises him by insisting that Gatsby “turned out all right at the end” and blaming the “careless people”.

Then, I consider Gatsby as my hero because he won us over with his overweening optimism and passion and nethertheless he carried on. He sacrificed himself for Daisy and for her happiness.

I definitely think that it has merit and that's my hero whereas Daisy is like an anti-hero because she didn't consider Gatsby and all he did for her. She didn't even say goodbye or nothing. I think a hero can't act like a coward so Daisy cannot be a hero.

To conclude, Fitzgerald wanted to deliver a important message. He wanted to show the corruption of the American Dream, that the American dream is illusory. It makes men do extraordinary and immoral things but however they chase the green light and it is forever out of reach. The green light symbolize hope and dreams, it symbolizes the perseverance in the pursuit of its dreams.

During all the story we follow Jay Gatsby as he persues his version of the American dream so he persues his own green light, and his failure to attain happiness leads us to believe that the moral of the story is that the American dream is ultimately unattainable.

By the way, there is two different morals to extract from this story.

First we have to always try to see good in people, like Nick does with Gatsby because in our life we can choose to focus on the good in people. That's even what Nick's father said “Always try to see the good in people”. Then money can't buy love or happiness, as we can see Gatsby creates a life of luxury in hopes of finding happiness and Daisy's heart.

What really matters in life is the relationships we have, the contributions we make and the love we give. To finish on a extract of the book, we can deduce that we don't have to critique others by Nick