Convenient Love (Tim)

I agree with Tyson that the relationships in The Great Gatsby are fake, and only exist to serve some other motive. As Tyson points out: Tom uses his relationships for his own sense of importance, Daisy uses Tom to avoid her feelings for Gatsby, and Gatsby uses Daisy as a goal: Social class personified. Tom is obviously not in love with either Myrtle or Daisy. The fact that he needs another woman is proof that he doesn't love Daisy, and lying about her religion is proof he does not love Myrtle. Myrtle loves Tom only as an escape from poverty, demonstrated by her disgust in the fact that "[Wilson] borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in" (chapter 2).

More than just Tom's relationships are false. Gatsby is not really in love with Daisy at all, he is in love with the high-class that she represents. In fact, passion is absent from Gatsby and Daisy's relationship, as Nick says in Chapter 8: "[Gatsby] felt married to [Daisy], that was all."

Tyson's psychoanalysis made me see Gatsby's love for Daisy as less than what I had previously perceived it to be. I had thought that theirs was the type of true love talked about in Disney movies. Now I see it as little more than a facade, used to hide true emotional handicaps.