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Great Gatsby Psychoanalysis

Better Essays

Jasmin Medellin Yanez
PSYCH 4312 01
Dr. Bias
April 13,2017
Psychoanalysis of Jay Gatsby In the movie The Great Gatsby, a character named Jay Gatsby, though his real name being James Gatz. He was born into a family of farmers and grew up poor in North Dakota. He saved a man out in the ocean by the name of Dan Cody in which he hired Gatsby to work for him. Gatsby being very ambitious, changed his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby and learned proper manners and etiquette from Dan Cody. Dan Cody meant to leave his wealth to Gatsby but his wife took all his money, leaving Gatsby poor again. Gatsby determined to become wealthy again, decided to enlist in the army during World War I. Before shipping out to Europe, he met a woman named Daisy and …show more content…

We want instant gratification from it and if it doesn’t happen we begin frustrated or anxious. Such as a toddler wanting another slice of cake and keeps crying until they get second slice. Gatsby’s Id was driven by Daisy. Such as an animal, he only sought out for gratification in needing her. He went into a criminal life for survival, and was due to the fact that he hated his life when he was poor. From all this leads to the Ego, which deals with reality and trying to be accepted in the world. In the case, Gatsby’s ego has a confliction in his personality between trying to be someone who he isn’t so daisy can accept him that even he leads himself to believe it is all real. His superego being that he never truly goes after Daisy. Instead he throws parties hoping it will bring her to him. Gatsby displays a fear of intimacy which is a part of the psychological defenses in psychoanalytic theory. He fears Daisy cannot love him if he isn’t the person she wants or wealthy, which also factors into why he leads the life he …show more content…

He is low on openness because he is not very open with anybody. He keeps secrets a lot and hides his past so not many people actually know about his life. He is very conciseness’s because he works hard for what he wants and works hard to win daisy over. Gatsby is very introverted as he keeps to himself and when he throws parties he rarely shows his face at them. He Isn’t very agreeable as for he doesn’t want to accept that you can’t live in the past. Gatsby is very neurotic because he is obsessed with daisy that he goes the extent to buying house across from hers. Using Maslow’s theory, he lacks in self-actualization in that he needs daisy to have motives for everything he does but doesn’t realize how he won’t be with

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