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Originally Posted by Richard Stanbery  Let us examine a work of fiction to realize some psychological understandings in this. |
Let's!
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In "The Great Gatsby", we see Jay trying to re-capture a lost love that he had once shared with Daisey. But what does this make Jay Gatsby? A fool?
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A romantic fool, yes. But not a fool in general. Too much of a good thing and all that.
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Was he projecting his own love into a "Daisey personage" that he had formed in his own mind? A Daisey with the inner capacity for deep love...that didnt really exist outside of Gatsby's mind?
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I do believe that's exactly what he was doing. Even if Daisey reciprocated that love in its intensity at some point, for however brief a duration, she clearly did not in its endurance. Gatsby, and those of his kind, aren't so much in love with the person itself as they are with the idea of an all-consuming love and loyalty. If we were to take Daisey out of his life, he would have either fixated himself on someone else or would have felt a tremendous void in his own life because he did not have anyone to shower his love upon. Gatsby strikes me as one of those people who need someone by their side constantly, and I do not mean necessarily physically, but they need someone who absorbs them all the time. He's trying to fill that void in himself with Daisey, even when she is given to someone else, clearly not being able to move on because it perhaps threatens his sense of identity.
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If so, would it have still worked out this way if Gatsby had been a man of more humble means, such as the gardener? Would he have been able to see Daisey for what she was, if he was looking from the ground up at a rich and spoiled sociopath?
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Daisey is an ordinary woman, rich but otherwise perfectly ordinary. The kind who are more interested in the practical necessities of life than they are by some romantic ideation. She is perhaps not even capable of any great love, not for a long time anyway. Gatsby in all likelihood knew that but still loved her. If Gatsby had been a humble gardener or something he might have still indulged in the same kind of love that he did, he might have still brought ruin on himself. It may have taken a different form, however. The problem here lies solely in Gatsby's mind, i.e. his idea of love, and not in external factors. That is my reading of it based on Gatsby's depicted behaviour, but I'm aware that as far as speculation is concerned anything goes.
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Is that what Daisey was? Or was she truly redeemable, a little bit, somewhere?
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Like I said, she's an ordinary, regular woman. Nothing better, nothing worse. Gatsby idealised her due to his own reasons, and this idealisation existed solely in his mind.
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Was Jay Gatsby right to try? To believe in her?
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It wasn't a matter of right or wrong though it seems misguided; his need to believe in her came from somewhere deep within him. He, apparently, needed to believe in a love higher than himself, if not so much in the woman he loved, he needed to be convinced of the power of this emotion he felt so strongly and see where it took him; he had to see it through to get over it, and what does seeing something through mean? It could get dangerous if one doesn't know when to stop.
It could also be argued that acting on this love, even despite his better judgment, provided a deep psychological comfort to him, much as an addiction does. What was so sad in the depths of Gatsby I cannot comment on because I read the book some time ago and do not recall the specifics but he must have been rather unhappy at his core to indulge in this sort of self-destructive behaviour and continue it for so long.
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Would he have eventually seen her as she was, and gave up on her as unworthy?
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I do suspect he saw her for what she was but dwelt on her better part, kept giving her the benefit of doubt, in the way some people very much in love do. They need to believe that not only is their own love pure but so is the object of their love, because they derive their sense of worth from it. And they also believe that if they persisted in this love their partner would eventually see the light and become what they want them to become. We observe that all around us and that I believe is the reason many of us continue being in painful relationships. This is hardly a selfless love; in fact, it's very destructive both for the one experiencing it and the one it is showered on because it comes from a deep neediness.
Gatsby probably hoped she would in time begin to see herself the way he saw her and that his enduring love for her would eventually extract the rise from her that was needed for the fulfillment of his romantic ideal, and the possibility of this happening was enough for him. I doubt he would have given up on her.
There is also the problem of steadfastness in love that some believe is imperative to the genuineness of that emotion and see its forsaking as some sort of betrayal. "Love isn't love which alters when it alteration finds" - Twelfth Night. If you can switch from one person to the other in a matter of months citing practical necessities, was what you felt for that person love in the first place? The answer is complicated, and not everybody wants to face up to the intricacies involved. They are so fixed on feeling good or bad due to their love that they proudly display it as their cross.
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What would a psychiatrist say of this? What has life taught the members of the forum about this?
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That one should recognise when to stop and move on in life, not the easiest thing in the world but very necessary and that if you really love someone you ought to let them go for your own sake. It's when your ego boundaries get confused, when you start looking at the person you love as an extension of yourself, that you threaten your own wellbeing and that of the other person and the relationship doesn't stand a chance of working. (This is also observed in parent-child relationships, when the parent becomes too protective of the child and is not able to separate the child's success or failure from their own; this not only threatens the all-round development of the child but also puts the parent's life on hold, not to mention vitiates their relationship.) And also that you need to be happy and fulfilled in your own way before you decide to share your life with someone or you'll take yourself to the cleaners, emotionally speaking. Gatsby, unfortunately, did not see it that way. He reveled in the misery of his love which is what makes him a tragic figure.
He is called "great" because in keeping his love for a woman alive for so long he did what not everybody is capable of doing. His capacity for love was indeed great, but unfortunately for him, not his way of exercising it.
P.S. Now I've got a question for you -- do you think I enjoyed the book or not?
P.P.S. Like I said I read it a long time ago so I may not recall the specifics of the story, I might even be inaccurate about some of those, but the above are some of the impressions the greatly complex character of Gatsby made on me, and one does not forget impressions, do they.
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