The Great Gatsby | Characters
Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of The Great Gatsby, was born Jimmy Gatz, a poor boy from an undistinguished family. Dazzled by Daisy Fay at a party when he was a young soldier on his way overseas, he is determined to win her love by accumulating enormous wealth and by developing a personal style of such glowing force that his beloved will be unable to resist his courtship. In a kind of dramatization of the Horatio Alger myth of self-improvement through hard work and fortunate circumstances, he overcomes the limits of his origins only to eventually succumb to greater limits. He is a natural...
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