I need some help here, how can I improve this to better answer the prompt?
The prompt states:
Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.
America was built around the principle that everyone is entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". We all have our life: we live, we breathe, we function. We all have our liberty: we can speak our mind, we are tried fairly, we run our lives without excess government regulation.
But what about our pursuit of happiness?
The word "pursuit" seems to create a paradox. As a child, only the fastest and the quickest way to happiness seemed the appealing. I embraced the Machiavellian attitude that "the ends justify the means", believing that to reach happiness, I must do everything in my power that got me where I wanted to go. I pushed myself to compete and succeed in everything I attempted, and there was no problem if I had to change myself along the way. I exercised my right to pursue happiness, and I would not let anything stop me. I held that mantra until my junior year.
That was when I met Jay Gatsby.
Being forced to read the novel The Great Gatsby by my English teacher, I was not expecting much. I assumed that the book would be another boring literature piece that apparently had great merit, but could not captivate me personally. However, as I continued to pour over the pages, I realized that there were parallels between my behavior and Gatsby's behavior. And there was a pattern that shocked me and scared me.
Jay Gatsby was born into poverty. However, he detested his social status; he was disgusted by his own family and humble lifestyle. In a sad twist of fate, he fell in love with Daisy, a high society woman not interested in character, merely interested in wealth. Placing her on an unattainable pedestal of perfection, he strived to become a member of the social elite to win her love.
Gatsby would never be good enough for Daisy. But blinded by his unconditional love, he worked endlessly to gain wealth. The once innocent and good-hearted man became a monster to himself, using immoral methods and corrupt means to rise in society. He conformed to the world's desires, and eventually gained everything that the world proclaimed would bring him happiness: an exquisite mansion, superfluous amounts of luxuries, lavish parties, and an affluent reputation. However, Gatsby was not happy. The truth is that he was not being true to himself. On the outside, he appeared confident, powerful, and content. But he had reinvented his identity entirely. He had become someone he was not. He had let his obsession with Daisy consume him, and in Fitzgerald's words, "[Gatsby] must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream".
Suddenly, I had a different outlook on life.
The persistent Gatsby never attained his goal. And similar to me, he had not accepted himself and his own shortcomings. I realized that it is not important to be rich, powerful, and famous. By analyzing Gatsby, I finally understood what is important: that we accept who we are as people.
We strive all our lives to gain approval. And sometimes, those who deny us the most are the ones we try to satisfy. Through Gatsby, I understood that we all have goals we long to reach, but we cannot betray what we believe to attain them. In the beginning, Gatsby had no wealth but a pure and honest character. As his life progressed, he gained wealth but lost his personality, never attaining what he longed for the most. In the end, he died without wealth and with a ruined character. Through his mistakes, I have realized that we must capitalize on what we have before we lose it.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Are any one of those ideals more important than the other? If you gain happiness at the end of your pursuit, is it worth losing your liberty? During his pursuit, Jay Gatsby lost his liberty of thinking for himself. He lost his liberty of enjoying happiness. But although he may be viewed as an unfortunate fool, I see him in a different light. Gatsby is an unconventional hero, simply following the American Dream but getting lost along the way. And although he is merely a character in fiction, he is a symbol to me, helping me not only understand the clichï of staying true to myself but expanding my ideas of life in general. What the world views as happiness may not ever satisfy us as people. Through Gatsby, I realized that pursuing happiness to the best of our abilities, without changing what we believe in, is how we can truly experience happiness.
