Subconscious Decisions In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The conscious allows people to make decisions. But what drives people to make these decisions in the first place? The answer lies within the subconscious. Understanding the subconscious keys us into the behavior of a person, or in this case a character, and what their desires and motivations may be. This is important because when it comes down to it, humans are compelled by basic instincts and urges. Knowing this, it is safe to say that the subconscious is mainly comprised of these innate properties. To better analyze characters, we can split their minds into three parts: the id, superego, and ego. The id is the part of the mind that tells our very basic desire of what we want. It is usually attributed to being irrational and emotional based. This can, for example, be seen as Gatsby desperately tries to hold onto his fantasy with Daisy, “‘Can‘t repeat the past?‘ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’ He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. ‘I‘m going to fix everything just the way it was before,’ he said, nodding determinedly. ‘She‘ll see.’ (110, 111).

Gatsby’s has convinced himself

Throughout the book, Nick seems to be Gatsby’s superego, as he gives him many warnings and judgements in an attempt that what seems like to teach Gatsby how to behave properly. As Nick says, “…Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.” (2). Fitzgerald comes right out and says this and more at the beginning of the book, almost as if to clearly explain the reader that Nick is a very good judge of people and is a near-perfect narrator to this story. Nick provides us with a fairly unbiased report throughout The Great