Nick and Gatsby s Quest

In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the thematic quest for the Holy Grail is shown through the conduct of Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. Gatsby s crusade is to attain Daisy Buchanan s love. While Nick s quest is to discover what matters in life and to live his life accordingly. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are on a voyage to uncover something that will better them as people, but each have different means of accomplishing their quest.

Jay Gatsby s mission is one in which he attempts to redeem his lost love, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby s parties are what he hopes will draw Daisy to him. These gatherings are intended solely for the intent of reacquainting Daisy and Gatsby. Gatsby even states that he does not actually enjoy the parties. Therefore, Gatsby understands that to prosper in his pursuit he must first meet his love anew. Jay Gatsby s exclusive journey is to rejoin his lost passion and fall in love once again.

Gatsby s quest ultimately leads to failure because of his vile means of attaining it and his inability to grasp reality. The corruption aspect came about from the idea that money has the ability of achieving love. Daisy Buchanan is a na ve women who only believes that the affluent can marry the rich. With this fancy Gatsby began to bootleg liquor which made him a large sum of money. With this, Gatsby was able to live in the lifestyle Daisy desired and had another shot of wooing her. Gatsby s inability to grasp reality also made his quest a disaster. If Gatsby could only understand that he does not have to relive what once was, he would be able to move on in his life. This downfall lead to Gatsby s persistent nature, which concentrated solely on the past. These downfalls are really what Gatsby thought would make him better. In reality, which he could not comprehend, they all lead to his destruction.

Nick Carraway has a quest that involves him living his life by the moral code. Since the beginning of the novel, he wants to resist judgement upon people. This fancy is based on the idea that you oppose discrimination until you really comprehend a person. Nick also, watches out for the good of other characters by refusing to give information like gossiping. For example, his refusal to make any judgement about Gatsby s affairs. Nick shows his ability to live properly by walking away from Jordan Baker. This decrees that Nick is a strong character by his knowledge that the relationship can not work out. He realizes that this could end in tragedy, alike Tom and Daisy Buchanan s. Nick s actions show his persistence to make an improvement of himself.

Nick s expedition is harder to determine, on one side of the story he did keep his moral obligation to try and better himself. But, this determination may have kept Nick from falling in love with Jordan Baker. The love may have been what Nick needed in his life, but he will never know the reality. Therefore, Nick s quest was a success as well as a failure, but the quest was acquired in a positive manner.

In the end of this novel, we realize the fate of our two-grail seekers. As the legend goes, only those pure of heart are able to obtain the grail. Since Gatsby tried to obtain his goal in an evil way his quest ended in tragedy, while Nick s ends in a respectful fashion because of his pureness of heart. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby idealized their perfect self-image but ended up empty handed. The way that you go about accomplishing your dream or quest does matter.