Skip to main content

In The Great Gatsby, how is Jay Gatsby greedy?

Gatsby is greedy because of how much he longs to have Daisy Buchanan.  It isn't a terrible kind of greed, some awful desire for which we might typically judge a character.  He has acquired his fortune via illegal means not so much because he wants to be rich, but because he wants Daisy, and he recognizes that one of the necessary steps in the process of attaining her is becoming rich.  She is used to a particular lifestyle, and Gatsby knows she would not be happy as a poor man's wife.  Nick describes the way Gatsby felt about Daisy all those years ago:



"Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees -- he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."



Gatsby longs to climb this ladder, the social ladder, and get to that secret place where the elite live, where he could have Daisy, the lifestyle, the security and status, everything he might ever want.  This desire is a result of his greed: now he longs to turn back time and repeat the past, something which is impossible, because his greed is blinding him to reality.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more