Gatsby’s True Love

Does Gatsby love Daisy, or does he love the lifestyle she represents?

We all know the line in The Great Gatsby, “He looked at her, the way all women want to be looked at by a man.”

If you have been loved, then you know the look that it means. If you haven’t, then I hope you know it when you see it.

But that isn’t the whole point of this writing. My question posed is: Did Gatsby truly love Daisy or was it the lifestyle she represented?

I have read the book a few times and also saw the movie a lot, so I’m going to try to walk a middle lane to it.

Now we know that Gatsby was born into a very poor family but always saw himself as more. Even believing he was actually a son from God and that he was due for better.

He ran away and found a man on a small yacht and helped save him from a strong storm, ending up learning things from him and living up to the richer lifestyle. When the man died, he wasn’t in the will and lost what he had considered his inheritance to the man’s children, and he moved onto being in the army.

And during the beginning of that time, he met his beloved Daisy. She wasn’t in the richest family, but she was brought up with money. He did fall in love with her and slept with her after a party her family held for the soldiers. And soon after, he was sent out into the war. He wrote her long letters of love and, after a while, she thought he had died, during which time she met Tom, a richer Polo player, and became engaged, and while getting ready for their wedding, Daisy received a final letter from Gatsby. He was coming back to her and she wanted to call the wedding off. Her mother, of course, would not have that happen, and she married Tom and they moved to a new bigger house and had a little girl.

A longer time from that, they noticed a house across the way from their pier starting to throw huge extravagant parties.

Daisy’s cousin moves into a little house next to Gatsby‘s and starts the humble job life. It isn’t long after that when he is invited to a Gatsby party, meets him, and becomes his friend. Probably his only real friend. Then they set the date to be reunited with Daisy. Every look and every word that Gatsby gives Daisy is the look of pure love even, and though she smiles and loves him as well, she is also filled with sadness and anxiety. Maybe she’s sad because she has to keep him hidden from everyone. Maybe because she has loved Tom, though Gatsby refuses to believe so. He covers up from Myrtle’s death to protect Daisy, and it ends when Tom tells Mr. Wilson where the yellow car came from, and Gatsby is killed. It seems to be easy for Daisy to, again, forget Gatsby—maybe because of Tom’s persistence maybe because it hurts her so deeply. All we hope is that she really did love him and just had to move on with her husband and daughter even though she never seemed completely alright with running away with Gatsby as he wished. We feel sad that it has ended so tragically, but I wonder why he chose Daisy. Yes, she was pretty, but she also lived in a rich town when they met. Was it really Daisy he chased in those years, or was it the rich lifestyle he always wished for? If they had married and he ran out of money, in theory, her parents and friends would be there to help. But there’s also hints that he got his money and connections illegally. He was able to do as he pleased, only flashing a card with his name and he’d get away with it. It’s very possible that he could have gotten away with Myrtle’s death if he was caught by authorities rather than Tom. I, for one, do hope that he truly loved Daisy with every fiber of his being, but I do find it intriguing to think maybe it wasn’t her but her money and lifestyle.