Wearing the Mask as the Way to Attain the Goal in The Great Gatsby by F. Fitzgerald - Essay Example

Everybody wears mask. We tend to be an amalgamation of different versions of ourselves that vary in different situations, time and in front of different people. It is an inherent attribute of a person to be multi-dimensional in a sense that we cannot truly be monotonous or at least not without being boring. We may not want to admit it but we are different in one way or another at times. We could be the obedient and hardworking son or daughter to our parents, the witty or adventurous person with our friends, or the caring and understanding individual in a romantic relationship. James Gatz realized after desperately losing his greatest love to someone well-off with a notable pedigree that he needed to be someone else, someone other than himself. He wanted to be accepted by Daisy Fay and to be taken seriously as someone worthy to be her better half. Someone better than whom he truly is in the name of the famous (or rather infamous) Jay Gatsby. It had been necessary for him to put on a mask and carry on an alternate reality just to be able to move in the same circles as her. These efforts are all in the plot to gain Daisy’s attention as he became fixated to the idea of a life he was supposed to live with her. Nick was a pawn in all of the games that he played and their first extensive personal conversation revealed the flaws in the lies that Gatsby has weaved to convince people of his affluence. He had been seemingly consistent in his stories but Nick had been a good judge of character in taking things with a grain of salt and relating to the reader that Gatsby was by no means a great man but there is always more to his stories and the truth reveals itself almost anti-climactically in the end. Their meeting that morning in July revealed more to Gatsby and how the audience starts to perceive him as a character. There had been plenty of gossips and assumptions as to who the man who threw extravagant parties is and as to where he came from. In this scene Gatsby himself seem to divulge more about himself. But just like Nick the reader has to read between the lines and comprehend the context accordingly. The car parked in front of Nick’s door and he jumped right in, much like the heightened anticipation the reader has into wanting to know more about this man in order to understand him. Lurching forward and not caring whatever comes next so long as the enigma somehow reveals himself more. Gatsby starts off the conversation too fittingly by asking “What’s your opinion of me, anyhow?” (Fitzgerald 70). This signifies the persona’s great regard for what people think of him. He is careful to form a perception in people’s minds of who he is and he wants them to regard him in high esteem. This question consequently took Nick for quite a surprise though it did not entirely rattle him as he knew that Gatsby must also be aware of the ideas floating around about him. Then Gatsby went on to tell about his past. That he was the son of a wealthy family from the Midwest, San Francisco to be exact and that his entire family had died already. This led him to a journey in different parts of the world and then off to war where he claimed he intended to die. These stories complete with embellishments in how he tells his stories and complete with evidence through articles such as a medal of valor and a photograph from Oxford with his contemporaries. Nick took this all with some sense of doubt realizing what Jordan first found to be insincerities. “He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’ or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him after all” (ibid). The study in the syntax and the intonation of Gatsby gives a deeper understanding on what Nick had established early on in his narration, that he is a good judge of character by not forthrightly concluding on their personalities and trying to understand where they are coming from. This is something which is almost too familiar as to make it Freud’s psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, this had been a good way of illuminating different layers to the characters that F. Scott Fitzgerald has masterfully created. The identity of Gatsby as an Oxford man is one of the most fundamental precepts of his generated popularity. This made him a man of character, someone who belongs to the longstanding tradition of excellence and refinement. This gave him credence to claim that he is not among the so-called nouveau rich that old money has so disdainfully discriminated against as though money differed depending on how hard one has worked for it. It was also most likely by no coincidence that Gatsby particularly made it known that he was from Oxford to parallel Tom Buchanan who went to Yale. In an encounter between Tom and Gatsby, the former called him out and probed on the details of his college life. Condescendingly remarking “You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven” (Fitzgerald 137). This was a reference to a man who attended their wedding loafing for free accommodations. Tom did not let the issue go and Gatsby was equally with conviction in answering the barrage of questions that he threw at him. But them the truth or more the half-truth reveals itself which actually puts light to the subject. Gatsby tells that it was only for a few months that he was able to attend Oxford since it was just an opportunity given to members of the military. The story was proliferated by people who heard a portion of the truth but not its entirety. Gatsby is not entirely to blame if people have a penchant to create buzzes and proliferate gossips. However, Gatsby himself is responsible since he did not do anything to correct any of them to set things straight. People assumed and they ardently believed these things to be true just because they heard it somewhere. ‘The Great Gatsby’ is one good example of the notion that the chase is better than the catch. Gatsby moved mountains and violated the law just so he will be able to reach the sun. Daisy has become someone unattainable for Gatsby since her marriage to Tom. He wanted more than anything for her to choose him and on this quest he was unsuccessful. He had never quite let go of this dream which prompted him to make Daisy choose between him and Tom presumptuously crying out that she loves him. But Tom has a better hold on her as she has no sense of herself anyway. The mask the Gatz wore was the most effective way for him to attain his goal. His ultimate objective was not to be rich or popular since these are all means to an end. His ultimate intention was to whisk Daisy off her feet and to convince her to leave her husband to live with him. It was necessary for him to present a different improved version of himself to get noticed. Had he approached Daisy as the same man he was five years ago he would not have gotten a second look. She would have easily dismissed him as unrelenting and pathetic. But instead he was a man of the world, someone everybody knew who throws the most lavish parties and he chose her. Gatsby showed them the variation of his mask he knew they will notice and in this he was effective. Though he may not have been successful in the life of his dreams, he had gotten the second chance with Daisy he had planned for. Work Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Planet Ebooks. 24 Mar. 2008. Web. 3 Dec. 2012. Read More