How does F. Scott Fitzgerald depict the destructive nature of obsession in “The Great Gatsby”?

From Conflict to Identity: Main Issues Explored in US Literary Education - Ievgen Sykalo 2026

How does F. Scott Fitzgerald depict the destructive nature of obsession in “The Great Gatsby”?

entry

Entry — The Great Gatsby

Obsession as Violence: The Core Delusion

Core Claim F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is not a tragedy about love or wealth, but a story about obsession—feral, saccharine, cannibalistic—and how this pursuit, a manifestation of self-delusion, is always a form of violence against Gatsby's own identity and Daisy's autonomy.
Entry Points
  • Control over Time: Gatsby’s desire for Daisy is fundamentally a desire to rewind the clock and re-establish a past that never truly existed, illustrating a profound refusal to accept entropy.
  • Objectification of Desire: Daisy functions less as a character and more as a "McGuffin," a blank screen onto which Gatsby projects his idealized fantasies, rendering her terrifyingly objectified rather than genuinely loved.
  • Aestheticized Delusion: Fitzgerald’s lush, perfumed prose aestheticizes Gatsby’s obsession, making its inherent ugliness and controlling nature appear romantic and noble to the reader, thereby implicating us in the delusion.
Think About It What does it mean to be desired obsessively, to be the object of someone else’s fantasy rather than a person, and how does this dynamic shape Daisy’s agency within the narrative?
Thesis Scaffold F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby illustrates how Jay Gatsby's relentless pursuit of Daisy Buchanan is not a romantic endeavor but a violent act of self-delusion, aimed at controlling time and reality rather than connecting with another person.
psyche

Psyche — The Great Gatsby

Gatsby's Solipsistic Pursuit of Completeness

Core Claim Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy is a manifestation of his self-delusional obsession, which can be seen as a form of violence against his own identity and Daisy's autonomy. He seeks not Daisy as a person, but a symbolic "phallic object of completeness," a Lacanian "lack" she is imagined to conceal, transforming his pursuit into a solipsistic ritual of self-validation.
Character System — Jay Gatsby
Desire To rewind time to 1917 and re-establish a past with Daisy that never truly existed, thereby validating his entire self-made identity.
Fear The acceptance of entropy, the mundane pain of real loss, and the collapse of his constructed identity if the dream proves unattainable or empty.
Self-Image The self-made man who can bend reality through sheer will and devotion, capable of achieving any desire through sufficient effort and wealth.
Contradiction He seeks connection and love but only sees Daisy as a symbol, flattening her into an object of his ego, incapable of genuine reciprocity.
Function in text Embodies the destructive potential of an idealized, unyielding American ambition, exposing the hollowness at the heart of the idea of self-made success and the pursuit of wealth as a means to achieve social status and happiness, as critiqued in Fitzgerald's novel.
Psychological Mechanisms
  • Symbolic Pursuit: Gatsby's desire for Daisy is less erotic and more symbolic, chasing an "impossible signifier" (Lacan, Écrits, 1966) that promises to fill an internal lack, visible in his house's architecture and the rehearsed parties he never enjoys.
  • Objectification through Voice: Daisy's voice, described as "full of money" (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby — Chapter 7), functions as a siren song of corporate America, highlighting her role as a commodity within Gatsby's fantasy, rather than an autonomous individual.
  • Delusion as Clarity: Gatsby's obsession feels like clarity and truth to him, but it is a profound distortion, a solipsism dressed in devotion’s clothes, preventing him from seeing Daisy as a real person because it would shatter his carefully constructed illusion.
Think About It How does Gatsby's internal psychological need for "completeness" transform Daisy from a person into a symbolic object within his carefully constructed world, and what are the consequences of this transformation?
Thesis Scaffold Jay Gatsby's psychological architecture, driven by a Lacanian "lack" rather than genuine affection, manifests in his relentless pursuit of Daisy Buchanan as a symbolic object, ultimately exposing the solipsistic violence inherent in his idealized American ambition.
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World — The Great Gatsby

Systemic Delusion: The American Context

Core Claim Gatsby's personal obsession is a microcosm of a systemic American delusion, rooted in myths of individual exceptionalism and the cultural refusal to accept limits, making his tragedy a critique of national pathology.
Historical Coordinates F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, a decade after the end of World War I and amidst the Roaring Twenties, a period of unprecedented economic boom, social change, and widespread belief in upward mobility and individual reinvention, often fueled by speculative wealth.
Historical Analysis
  • Bootstrap Myth: Gatsby's self-reinvention from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby mirrors the pervasive American "bootstrap myth," where individual desire is believed to justify existence and overcome any past, regardless of its ethical cost. This myth is central to the idea of self-made success and the pursuit of wealth as a means to achieve social status and happiness, as critiqued in Fitzgerald's novel.
  • Post-War Disillusionment: The novel's underlying current of disillusionment reflects the societal pressures and cultural norms that influence individual behavior and relationships, as reflected in the novel, of a post-WWI generation grappling with the hollowness beneath the era's glittering prosperity, where old values had collapsed but new ones had not yet solidified.
  • Consumerist Desire: The lavish parties and material displays at Gatsby's mansion embody the era's burgeoning consumer culture, where identity and worth were increasingly tied to visible wealth and the acquisition of desired objects, including people.
Think About It How does the historical context of the Roaring Twenties, with its emphasis on self-made wealth and reinvention, transform Gatsby's personal delusion into a broader critique of a national pathology?
Thesis Scaffold Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby critiques the systemic American delusion of the 1920s, illustrating how Gatsby's personal obsession with Daisy is a direct consequence of a cultural narrative that equates individual desire with moral justification and rejects the inevitability of entropy, reflecting the idea of self-made success and the pursuit of wealth as a means to achieve social status and happiness, as critiqued in Fitzgerald's novel.
ideas

Ideas — The Great Gatsby

The Madness of Refusing Entropy

Core Claim The text argues that the refusal to accept entropy and the belief in correcting the past are not romantic ideals but forms of madness, disguised as devotion, that ultimately lead to self-destruction.
Ideas in Tension
  • Past vs. Present: Gatsby's fervent belief that "You can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby — Chapter 6) directly clashes with Nick's more grounded understanding of time's irreversibility, highlighting the novel's central philosophical conflict.
  • Illusion vs. Reality: The novel consistently places the seductive power of Gatsby's "colossal vitality of his illusion" (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby — Chapter 5) against the mundane, often ugly, realities of his pursuit, such as Daisy's indifference or Tom's brutality.
  • Control vs. Acceptance: Gatsby's entire project is an attempt to exert control over his personal history and the people within it, contrasting sharply with the necessity of accepting loss and the inherent unpredictability of human agency.
Slavoj Žižek, in The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), argues that ideology functions by presenting a fantasy that fills a fundamental lack, a concept directly applicable to Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy as an idealized object that promises completeness.
Think About It If Gatsby's core belief is that the past can be corrected, what philosophical position does the novel ultimately take on the nature of time, memory, and human agency in the face of inevitable change?
Thesis Scaffold Through Gatsby's unwavering conviction that the past is mutable, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby argues that a refusal to accept entropy is not romantic idealism but a dangerous philosophical delusion, ultimately leading to self-destruction and the objectification of desire.
essay

Essay — The Great Gatsby

Beyond Romance: Crafting a Critical Thesis

Core Claim Students often misread Gatsby's obsession as romantic, failing to recognize its inherent violence and the text's critique of this delusion, which prevents them from developing a truly analytical thesis.
Three Levels of Thesis
  • Descriptive (weak): Gatsby loves Daisy and tries to win her back by throwing big parties and showing off his wealth.
  • Analytical (stronger): Gatsby's elaborate parties and carefully cultivated persona are not expressions of love but calculated attempts to manipulate Daisy into fulfilling his idealized vision of their past, illustrating his profound insecurity.
  • Counterintuitive (strongest): By presenting Gatsby's "great" obsession as both tragically sincere and fundamentally violent, Fitzgerald's novel implicates the reader in the seductive power of delusion, forcing an uncomfortable recognition of how American ambition can corrupt genuine human connection.
  • The fatal mistake: Students often mistake Gatsby's persistence for nobility, overlooking how his refusal to acknowledge Daisy's agency or the passage of time transforms his desire into a controlling, solipsistic fantasy, rather than a reciprocal affection.
Think About It Can someone reasonably disagree with your thesis, or are you merely stating a fact about the plot? If no disagreement is possible, your thesis is likely descriptive, not argumentative.
Model Thesis Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby dismantles the romantic myth of Gatsby's devotion, showing through his objectification of Daisy and his violent rejection of the present moment that his "love" is a destructive manifestation of ego and control, rather than genuine affection.
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Now — The Great Gatsby

Algorithmic Obsession: The 2025 Parallel

Core Claim Gatsby's obsession with a curated, idealized past structurally parallels contemporary algorithmic systems that prioritize engagement with curated realities over authentic, evolving experience, trapping users in a cycle of unfulfilled desire.
2025 Structural Parallel The algorithmic feedback loops of social media platforms, which constantly surface idealized past moments or reinforce curated self-images, structurally mirror Gatsby's relentless attempt to recreate a specific past with Daisy, trapping users in a self-referential loop of unfulfilled desire. This reflects the societal pressures and cultural norms that influence individual behavior and relationships, as reflected in the novel and contemporary digital systems.
Actualization
  • Eternal Pattern: The human tendency to chase an idealized past, rather than engage with a complex present, is an eternal pattern, amplified by contemporary digital systems that monetize nostalgia and curated realities.
  • Technology as New Scenery: Just as Gatsby's mansion and parties were the elaborate "scenery" for his delusion, contemporary digital platforms provide the stage for individuals to perform and pursue idealized versions of themselves and others.
  • The Forecast That Came True: Fitzgerald's depiction of a society consumed by superficiality and the pursuit of an unattainable "green light" exposes the structural logic of engagement-driven platforms that thrive on perpetual longing rather than fulfillment.
Think About It How do contemporary digital systems, designed to optimize engagement, reproduce the structural conditions of Gatsby's self-defeating obsession with an an idealized, unrecoverable past?
Thesis Scaffold Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby offers a structural blueprint for understanding how contemporary algorithmic mechanisms, by perpetually surfacing curated pasts and idealized futures, perpetuate a Gatsby-esque cycle of unfulfilled desire, prioritizing engagement with illusion over authentic connection.


S.Y.A.
Written by
S.Y.A.

Literature educator and essay writing specialist. Over 20 years of experience creating educational content for students and teachers.