preview

Gatsby Identity Quotes

Decent Essays

“The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years”. This quote is from Ruth Madoff, the ex-wife of Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff is notoriously known for being charged with eleven felonies and stealing over $65 billion from investors. In the end, the rest of his days were restricted by spending life in prison. When money became a priority within the lives of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the characters became victims of a vile crime, the theft of identity. All three pieces comparatively display the bankruptcy of identity in which money was desired to acquire a certain dream. This cost of identity, for …show more content…

Since Willy could not reach the dream himself, he bargained his identity for money, so his son could “live the dream” that he never could. Willy states to Happy, “ The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he’s rich!”(41) When Willy believed that he could amass fast money for his family, he thought about killing himself. All he could think about was the money that could be earned for his family; “Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition” (125). Willy became obsessed with the idea of quickly obtaining this dream, and thought the only fix was to make his son successful. Willy thought you could easily achieve this dream with just personality and popularity. He was clouded by this dream and became senile, which eventually led to the loss of his identity. The money itself stole Willy’s identity in which he became a “low-man” in the process of trying to achieve his …show more content…

James Gatz “-that was really his name, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career- when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior” (98). Jay Gatsby was born the moment that James Gatz could smell the success of Dan Cody. Gatsby became even more obsessed with money, and with this money he thought he could win over the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby said to Daisy’s husband, “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me”(130). Jay Gatsby thought that his new lifestyle of money and fame would attract Daisy, but on his quest to become prosperous, it came at the price of his identity. Daisy eventually chose her husband, Tom, over Gatsby.This broke Gatsby’s false identity, which was made solely to win her over. When money became necessary to acquire a dream of marrying Daisy, his identity had to change in order to be the right puzzle piece that fit in between the pieces of money and

Get Access