Brittini Cook
Juniors Honors English
May 10, 2013
Literary Analysis
Delusions can take over our perception of reality. We suddenly don’t know what real and
what’s fake. A perfect example is Jay Gatsby in The great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby is
a man who loves a girl and would do anything to be with her; even if that means living in the
past to satisfy his delusion type needs. The Novel has many twists and turns and Fitzgerald uses
many different analogies and such to advance the novel in the best possible way. Delusions play
a very large role in this novel; not only for Gatsby but also for quite a few of the characters. A
delusion is a belief or impression that is maintained even though it is in fact not reality. The main
two people that are delusional in this novel are Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, and the only
person who truly faces reality is George Wilson.
Jay Gatsby is the most delusional character in the novel. He believes that his old
girlfriend, who is now married with a daughter, still loves him as much as when they were
together. He isn’t necessarily wrong but he truly believes he can live in the past. “’ “Can’t repeat
the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”” (Fitzgerald chpt. 6). Here Gatsby
and the narrator nick are having a conversation about the past and nick, who is not delusional at
all, is trying to convince Gatsby that daisy had moved on and has a whole new life. But of course
Mr. Gatsby will not believe him. Even at the end of novel when Daisy choses to go home to Tom
and not with Gatsby he is still convinced that she will chose him.
The next highly delusional person in the book is Tom, and not only is he delusional he is
also a very big hypocrite. ““You’re crazy!” he exploded. “I can’t speak about what happened
five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then —and I’ll be damned if I see how you got
within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that’s a
God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.” “No,” said
Gatsby, shaking his head. “She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas
in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing.” He nodded sagely,” (Fitzgerald chapt. 7). In
this part of the book everything has been laid out on the table Tom knows about Gatsby and
Daisy and there all having quite the Talk. Even though Gatsby is delusional thinking daisy still
loves him just the same. Tom is also delusional thinking she loves him the same too. Then the
reason tom is such a hypocrite is because he’s been cheating on daisy since the moment they got
married if not longer, but yet the second daisy does it it’s the worst thing in the world. He plays
quite the double standard.
Which lead me into my next point, the only person who truly faces his delusions and does
his best to deal with reality is George Wilson. See George’s wife, Myrtle is the one that Tom has
been cheating on daisy with. Well after he realizes it his wife is ran aver and he is told that it is
Gatsby who has hit him. So to end the book, instead of George living in some delusional world
he faces facts and kills Gatsby and then himself. Of course it’s not the best way to face ones
delusions but it is facing reality which is better than Gatsby or Tom can ever say for them.
In conclusion, it is pretty obvious that delusions can take over your life as I’ve shown
here in many ways. Gatsby paid for his delusional mind by being killed, the one person who
never paid was Tom which is quite unfair.