For over a century people have laughed, wept, gasped, and marveled at the story of The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby’s unrelenting pursuit of Daisy and his big dreams are forever remembered in people’s hearts. However, it has always been a hotly debated topic whether Gatsby is truly great or not—and considering all aspects, it is hard to deny that the word “great” in the title is ironic. This is the reason why readers who have been captivated by the tragic tale of Jay Gatsby and his elusive love, think so highly of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. After all, people don’t just shed tears for just any insipid love story. Essentially, Gatsby’s greatness is ironic due to his complex character, his failure to see Daisy for who she really is, and that he is only called “great” once throughout the entire novel. 

“Great” is a narrow definition of who Gatsby is; as a full, well-developed character, Gatsby also exemplifies some other negative qualities such as vanity and dishonesty. It is true that Gatsby is a member of the nouveau riche who works illegally in the bootlegging business. He lied to Nick, Daisy, and all others because his vanity tells him to conceal his criminal business. “I’ll tell you God’s truth,” he swore to Nick, trying to convince Nick that he was not just a random nobody. “I am the son of some wealthy family in the Middle West—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford… My family all died and I came into a great deal of money” (Fitzgerald 65). When Tom Buchanan demanded the truth, however, Gatsby bluntly conceded his illegal dealings in Daisy’s presence without even trying to concoct an answer. Thus, Gatsby is in fact not an honest man, and sometimes not even a clever man. Readers connect with Gatsby because of his magnetic and captivating personality which includes lovesickness and optimism, but just like all human beings, he exhibits a two-sided nature. The complexity of his character shows exactly just how ironic the word “great” is, for he can be described in a medley of different ways.

Gatsby not only does whatever it takes to achieve his dream, but also decides to do it even when he already realizes the huge gap between reality and imagination, when he already knows he has distorted his reality. In the novel, for instance, when Nick tried to tell him the truth about Daisy, Gatsby interrupted him and completed his sentence, realizing that her voice was full of money. In this sense Gatsby is a realistic person, but realistic in a way that he is always trying his best to ignore what he knows to be true and continue to construct the world that exists only in his imagination, daring to believe that the past is easily retrievable as long as he has enough faith for miracles to happen. When Nick suggested to Gatsby that, “You can’t repeat the past”, Gatsby replied incredulously: “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”. He genuinely believed that he could “fix everything just the way it was before” (Fitzgerald 110). His obstinacy shows us his naive attempts to ignore the reality and recreate what has already been irretrievable history. Gatsby creates a powerful illusion of himself as being “great”, but underneath it all, he is just an unrealistic lovesick boy who is wistful for something no longer attainable.

Finally, throughout the entire book, there is only one time that the word “great” appears and is associated with Gatsby. Even more surprisingly, it turns out to be in Mr. Gatz’s, Gatsby’s father, comment about his dead son: “If he’d lived he’d of been a great man” (Fitzgerald 168). This stands in stark contrast to Gatsby’s attitude towards his parents: “…his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all” (Fitzgerald 98). It is woeful how the only time Gatsby is said to be a “great” man actually comes from his father—someone Jay Gatsby was estranged from and one of the only three people at his funeral. With all the fame and wealth Gatsby has, he was recognized as “great” by no one else besides Mr. Gatz, who he wouldn’t even speak to. Ironically, people that Gatsby cared about abandoned him and moved forward in life; those that Gatsby neglected, like his father and Owl-eyes, chose to attend his funeral. Therefore, the word itself proves to be an irony.

Ultimately, irony is the best word to describe the “great” Gatsby, the protagonist in this classic novel. From the novel serving as a satirical mirror of the main character’s less than great qualities to no one else recognizing his actual greatness, this book ironically lives up to its name. Comparing to our nowadays society, in which people like Kim Kardashian can rise to fame by advertising their own sexual scandals in exchange for public attention and still be frantically adored and pursued, while Gatsby gets shunned by the society simply because of his background and his misfitting integrity, what has changed over time?