The Great Gatsby | Themes and Characters
Jay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby, was bom 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 she will be unable to resist his courtship. Gatsby's efforts in a way dramatize the myth, popularized in Horatio Alger's stories of the late nineteenth century, of self-improvement through hard work and fortunate circumstances. But Gatsby overcomes the limits of...
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