Gatsby is the eponymous hero of the book and is the main focus. However, although Gatsby has some qualities which are typically heroic, other aspects of his character are closer to the typical villain.

Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.

Jay Gatsby is by far the most naive character throughout the novel. He naively believes that he will be able to win Daisy ‘s affection by becoming wealthy through illegal means and reentering her life five years after seeing her.

I don’t even mean to say that Gatsby is a bad character—he is well written, interesting, and even sympathetic. He’s just not a romantic hero. He’s a Great man but not a good man. He’s not in love with Daisy, he’s in love with the idea of her, the idea of money, and the distant green glow of his own idealized past.

And he has arrived at an answer: Yes. “Fitzgerald characterizes Jay Gatsby as a pale black individual passing as white,” says Carlyle V. Thompson, an assistant professor in the department of literature, languages and philosophy at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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At the end of the novel, he kills Gatsby, wrongly believing he had been driving the car that killed Myrtle, and then kills himself. Myrtle Wilson—George’s wife and Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

Daisy ends up going back to her husband. The safety of the life she knows wins out over a life with Gatsby. Tom revealed the fabric of lies that Gatsby had told, and in doing so, made Daisy realize that she could never be with a bootlegger.

In some ways, Tom Buchanan represents the fulfillment of the American Dream, because he has wealth, a lavish estate, fancy cars, a child, and a beautiful wife—he has everything that the classic American dreamer desires. But in other respects, Tom proves the archetype of the American Dream to be a myth.

Despite being a commentary on a different age and people, Gatsby’s story is as relevant today as it was when it was written. Because it explores universal themes — human follies, the hopelessness of societal constructs and man’s struggle with time and fate.

T. J. Eckleburg, a fictional oculist in The Great Gatsby. A fictional oculist, and financier of music producer Yul Singh, named Dr. T. J. Eckleburg also appears in The Ground Beneath Her Feet. He has lived in London, Berlin, and Kyoto.

Nick Carraway is a fictional character and narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.