There was a certain coldness to the characters within Great Gatsby, this desperately insistent need for emotional suppression that by the time my fingers delicately held the last page, I felt as if my emotion had been wasted by someone who pushed on the accelerator too hard for too long and my emotion came out in the form of polluted air. It wove itself into the oxygen within Mr. Gatsby's lungs and he choked on the warmth of it because no icicle can keep itself from melting once the temperature has risen no matter how strong. It punctured his lungs as it fell, impaling his heart with the kind of dramatic flair that you only see at a badly done Shakespeare modern revival. Three days romances were never my thing, yet Gatsby intertwined his entire being with it except his Juliet wasn't willing to wait for him let alone to drink a potion so they could try to be together. No, Daisy faced Gatsby with the kind of coldness that splits you into two because you once knew what warmth was like and without it, you're lost (Fitzgerald 95, 96,145). Gatsby based his life around who Daisy used to be, resulting in his emotional well being being utterly dependent on the idea that he would have her once he actualized his wealth ( 78, 110). His emotional expressiveness was significantly higher than that of anyone within the book due to his depending on hope and other wealthy characters on the stoic coldness that wrapped their hearts in glistening ice cases like overpriced plastic wrap. With just a tug, some characters came unraveled such as Tom when Myrtle taunts him by saying Daisy over and over again (37). Others, like Daisy, could only be temporarily emotional after the building up of difficult situations involving people she cared for, specifically Gatsby (132) but in the face of emotionally traumatic events, she did not care (144). On the other hand, Myrtle is so open about her emotions that you would think her emotions were talking, not her thoughts and her husband has little emotional restraint if any. There seems to be this idea that the wealthy are emotionally suppressed and the poor emotionally out of control. Gatsby went from the poor and emotional to wealth without ridding himself of emotion, yet he became most successful through a business that required emotional suppression and extreme logic. Making his dream realistic is what made Gatsby fall because his emotion clouded his judgement so extremely that he sacrificed everything he'd ever worked for for a girl long gone. If Gatsby's dream of having Daisy wouldn't have been touched on the surface, he still would be financially successful because his emotions were still reserved since only Daisy could evoke them. In the end, it seemed that emotional suppression and coldness was the only way to maintain power because the more emotion someone held over you, the more they could control you which could result in financial and emotional loss. Being less emotional allowed for order, but it was the kind of order that was utterly revolting, like the beauty of a lethal disease. Gatsby died because he actualized his hope, and lost it. Being emotional killed him, and when Daisy became extremely cold at the end, it allowed her to save her marriage and move somewhere else without a hint of a bad reputation.
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