In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, there is much of the youthful and idealistic in Jay Gatsby. Indeed, his perception of Daisy with her white car and white dresses is much like that of the purified maiden and he the knight who seeks her. In this infatuation, Jay stands on his lawn looking for the "single green light, minute and far away" until the day comes that Nick arranges for Gatsby to meet with Daisy.
In excited preparation for this meeting, the idealistic Gatsby offers to have Nick's grass cut; he orders "a greenhouse of flowers" sent to Daisy. When he arrives, he wears
a white flannel suit, silver shirt and god cored tie...He was pale and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
'Is everything all right?' he asked immediately.
He is pale, with his hands
plunged like weights in his coat pockets,...standing in a puddle of wter glaring tragically into [Nick's] eyes.
Like a love-sick schoolboy, Gatsby has silent gaps in his conversation. When Daisy remarks that they had not met for years, Gatsby knows the exact date: "Five years next November." Then, he takes Nick into the other room to talk with him privately. Even Nick tells him, "You're acting likea little boy."
Much like the boy of James Joyce's "Araby," Gatsby has fabricated an image of Daisy that does not match the reality. This infatuation with Daisy is another reflection of Gatsby's world of illusion which he has created from illegal gains, parties with guests whom he does not even know, and his materialistic American Dream--all of which are a tableau of the Jazz Age.
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