Please respond to ALL of the following questions-make sure to give a thorough response, end with a question and respond to at least one other person's comment.
Idealism has always been a way for people to escape reality, or to pursue a reality that isn't quite tangible. Having dreams for something more has many effects.
If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful? Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Are people more apt to not get what they desire?
Characterize Gatsby's dreamer mentality and what you see in his idealism (try to use textual support to back up your opinion)
Having your head in the clouds is not always a bad thing. It is a great way to be happy and live a life that is not always possible for you. But dreamers have to be more careful than regular people. They can not allow the lines between their dreams and their reality to become blurred. If they dream that they have done or can do something but they can not in reality it will end well. In The Great Gatsby Gatsby is a dreamer. He created a reality for himself where he and Daisy picked up right where they left off. Nick says he can not repeat the past and Gatsby reveals his flawed logic by saying, “Why of course you can!” It is impossible to exactly recreate the past. No matter how much money he has or how hard he wants it to happen the planets continued to turn and Daisy drifted away from him however slightly. Those five years he clung so tight to Daisy she was slipping away. The universe was pulling them apart from the day they parted. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If they tried to hard to fall for eachother again they will fall further from each other. Fitzgerald wrote their love story to fail. That is why the universe of the book will force them apart. But in the real world if a person wants something bad enough and it is in their power to achieve it nothing can hold them back. That was Daisy’s flaw. She didn’t want Gatsby enough to make it work. Deep down Gatsby knew this from the day he met her. That is why he created a special place for her in his dreams.
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Shooting for the stars and having this dreamer mentality that Gatsby has is very beneficial. Not only does it give motivation as to where to go and what to do, but it also give this imaginative feel to life. Not knowing what is going to happen next, should inspire you to make your own path, not let others do it for you. Along with this, however, being a bit too ambitious could be a harmful thing. For example, Nick notices that Gatsby starts to force things between him and Daisy: “‘I wouldnt ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past’” (Fitzgerald 110). As Gatsby says this to Gatsby, a moment of realization kind of occurred, there was a huge transition between Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Things between them began to feel artificial. Because of this, I feel there is a fine line between shooting for the stars and going too far; this was clearly represented by Fitzgerald through Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Along with this, Gatsby holds Daisy to very high expectations. This extreme version of this dreamer mentality that Gatsby has leads him to over hype Daisy and her being. This happens too much today, either ourselves or others give a false representation of what’s presented. This is the biggest danger of having the point of view that Gatsby has, it only sets up a situation where it is worse than expected, rather than better.
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