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Cameron Shull
Mrs. Weathersbee

AP Language and Composition

10 February 2015
The Love Triangle in The Great Gatsby
There are many books that are considered classics, one of them being The Great Gatsby.
The novel was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and explores the lives of the upper class in the
different eggs. Tom and Daisy are in the West Egg and Gatsby and Nick are in the East Egg.
The main characters in the novel all have many different characteristics which depict who they
are. Tom and Daisy are married although Tom cheats on Daisy often. Gatsby is still in love with
Daisy and wants to be with her even though he is dating Jordan. Tom and Daisy dont actually
love each other and Gatsby doesnt love Jordan because he is in love with Daisy
Gatsby was a man of many characteristics. He had changed his name from when he was a
child and did not want to belong to any other class other than the upper class. Gatsby has an
undying love for Daisy, ever since he met her in Kentucky when enrolled in the army. He vowed
that he would spend the rest of his life trying to win Daisy back. Gatsby got his money through
bootlegging and other business activities that were quite questionable. He buys a house that is

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directly across the bay from Tom and Daisy. He often throws extravagant parties and he likes to
own cars that everyone else wants and likes to show them off. Nick describes Gatsby as an
elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just
missed being absurd (Fitzgerald, 48).

Daisy Buchanan is a young woman who is married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is very
shallow, which is why she married Tom, because he was wealthy. Daisy comes from a wealthy
family in Louisville where she met Gatsby. Daisy is a very charming woman who is in love with
material items. Nick depicts Daisy as a careless person who uses her money as her source of
happiness. She is always wearing white dresses which symbolizes innocence although she is not
an innocent person. White traditionally symbolizes purity, and there is no doubt that Fitzgerald
wants to underscore the ironic disparity between the ostensible purity of Daisy and Jordan and
their actual corruption. (Schneider 2). Daisy and Tom have a child together but Daisy never
shows her affection or love.

Tom Buchanan is a very different man. He likes to have affairs; the one the reader knows
about is Myrtle. She is the complete opposite of Daisy. Tom and Daisy are alike in the fact that
they love money and do not care about many other things. Tom is very arrogant and selfcentered. Tom came from a wealthy family and met Daisy when he was on the army base also.

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Tom and Daisy are married and have a child, Pammy. Pammy gets very little attention
throughout the whole story because her parents dont love each other so they dont have a reason
to love her either. If Tom loved Daisy then he would not cheat on her with Myrtle. Myrtle is
quite different than Daisy so its often wondered why Tom chose her to cheat with. Myrtle is
part of the lower class and the only time she ever has control is when she is with Tom. If Tom
truly loved Daisy than he would not go to Myrtle all the time. Also, Myrtle does not love her
husband because if she did then she would not cheat on him with Tom. Daisy knows that

Jay Gatsby has been in love with Daisy ever since the day he met her when he was
enrolled in the army. Daisy was always at the base and then she fell in love with Gatsby. Gatsby
had to leave for Europe and Daisy waited a short time before sending him a letter that she was
going to be with Tom instead. Gatsby vowed that day that he would spend the rest of his life
trying to win Daisy back for himself, which is why Gatsby is in love with the idea of winning
Daisy back, not actually in love with her.
Gatsby thought that he could buy Daisys love, which is why he changed his name and
became a wealthy man and moved across the bay from the Buchanans, so that he could have, in
a way, more contact with them than if he did not live across the bay. The reason Gatsby moves
across the bay was so when he was throwing one of his parties, she would come over and fall in
love with him again (Blooms Guide, n.p.). On the most banal
level, The Great Gatsby documents the truism that money can't buy you love, or at least not the

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tainted money Gatsby acquires in his campaign to take Daisy away from her husband.
(Donaldson, n.p.). Although there was no way that Gatsby would ever have as much money as
Tom did, he could still become wealthy so that Daisy would not be concerned about that aspect
of being with Gatsby. Gatsby, thinking that he is so in love with Daisy, does not really realize if
he is or not until he sees the green light across the bay, But once he sees and touches the actual
rather than the idealized Daisy, the beacon begins to lose its "colossal significance" for him.
(Donaldson, n.p.).

"it excited him that many men had already loved Daisyit increased her value in his
eyes" (99). Tom's relatively public love affair with Myrtle Wilson has turned Daisy into a
caustic cynic who maintains her aristocratic socialite image because it strokes her vanity
and camouflages her husband's infidelities (Tunc, n.p.)

Gatsby looked at Daisy being with so many guys, as a good thing. He thought it meant that more
men cared more about her. Since Daisy knew about Toms affair, she wasnt the nicest person. It
is said that Gatsby wanted to find who he was at the time he fell in love with Daisy and that is
why he wanted her to fall in love with him (Tunc, n.p.).

The last sentence above signals the beginning of the end. Gatsby has attained the
momentary attention of his lost love, and has achieved the goal to which he has devoted
five years of his life. But he also did not yet have it; Daisy would go home at the end of

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the day. As well, the realization would come soon that the love he hoped to recreate
could never be the same, if it had indeed ever really been as he had imagined. (Blooms
Guide, n.p.)

Daisy is said to be the prize between the two men (McGowan, n.p.). Tom uses Daisy
as an object to show off to his friends, because a guy like him would never be with a woman like
Myrtle in front of people, so therefore he has to use Daisy. Shes a prize for Gatsby because
shes the thing that hes been wanting for the past 5 years. At one point, Gatsby gets help from
Nick, since Nick is Daisys cousin, to invite Daisy over for tea. Nick helps and when Daisy
comes over, it is strange between Daisy and Gatsby but later they both become happy because
they reunited.

Pammy, Tom and Daisys daughter, was affected by Toms affairs also. She is
indifferent to her daughter Pammy, and plans on raising her to be "a foolthat's the best thing a
girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool," most likely so she will not have to suffer the
indignity of struggling with a moral conscience (12). (Tunc, n.p.). Since the affairs made Daisy
a cynical person, she did not think that her daughter would amount to anything except for a fool.
Pammy is not mentioned often but the readers never forget her. Tom and Daisys loveless
marriage affects their own daughter and they dont even realize it.
Tom and Daisy do not truly love each other although they are married. Tom constantly
has affairs and never truly cares about how Daisy feels. He started showing a little bit of caring

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when he found out that Daisy and Gatsby had been getting together. Although Daisy came from
a wealthy family, she is still in love with the fact that Tom is very wealthy and also comes from a
wealthy family. Gatsby does not actually love Daisy, he is just still in love with the girl that he
had met 5 years ago.

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WORKS CITED
Donaldson, Scott. "Possessions in The Great Gatsby." The Southern Review(Spring 2001): 187
210. Quoted as "Possessions in The Great Gatsby" in Bloom, Harold, ed. The Great
Gatsby, Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations. Philadelphia: Chelsea House
Publishing, 2003. Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 11 Feb. 2015
<http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID=101204&SID=5&iPin=
MCITGG012&SingleRecord=True>.
Emin Tunc, Tanfer. "The Great Gatsby: The Tragedy of the American Dream on Long Island's
Gold Coast." In Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom's Literary Themes.
New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc.
Web. 11 Feb. 2015
<http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID=101204&SID=5&iPin=
BLTTAD009&SingleRecord=True>.
McGowan, Philip. "The American Carnival of The Great Gatsby1." Connotations vol. 15, nos.
13 (2005/2006): 14358. Quoted as "The American Carnival of The Great Gatsby1" in
Bloom, Harold, ed. The Great Gatsby, New Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical
Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2010. Bloom's Literature. Facts
On File, Inc. Web. 11 Feb. 2015
<http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID=101204&SID=5&iPin=
MCIGG009&SingleRecord=True>.
Bloom, Harold, ed. "The Great Gatsby." The Great Gatsby, Bloom's Guides. New York: Chelsea
House Publishing, 2006. Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 11 Feb. 2015
<http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID=101204&SID=5&iPin=
BGTGG10&SingleRecord=True>.
Schneider, Daniel J. "Color-Symbolism in The Great Gatsby." N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.