Discussion
How does Gatsby’s behavior in Chapter 5 suggest that Daisy represents a fantasy rather than a real person?
Gatsby’s extreme nervousness, rehearsed gestures, and emotional intensity show that he has built Daisy up as an ideal rather than seeing her as a real, complex person. His fear is not about reconnecting with Daisy herself, but about whether his fantasy can survive contact with reality.
He developed the concepts of the id, ego, and superego
Who is Sigmund Freud?
This object across the bay symbolizes Gatsby’s unconscious fantasy that love can erase the past
What is the green light?
This type of criticism analyzes literature by examining unconscious desires, repression, and internal conflicts.
What is psychoanalytic criticism?
This psychoanalytic term explains how painful or unacceptable thoughts are forced out of awareness.
What is repression?
In what ways can Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy be seen as a form of repression or projection?
Gatsby represses his deeper insecurities about class, worth, and identity, then projects those unmet needs onto Daisy. She becomes the symbol of everything he believes will validate him (success, love, and belonging) rather than an independent individual.
He proposed the personal and collective unconscious and archetypal
Who is Carl Jung?
This large, luxurious setting symbolizes Gatsby’s dream life he believes will win Daisy back
What is Gatsby’s mansion?
Psychoanalytic theory originated in this time period.
What is the late 19th to early 20th century?
This psychoanalytic process explains how Gatsby redirects his need for validation and fulfillment onto Daisy.
What is projection?
How does the reunion between Gatsby and Daisy reveal the conflict between unconscious desire and reality?
Gatsby’s unconscious desire imagines Daisy as perfect and timeless, but reality intrudes when she appears human and flawed. This moment exposes the gap between what Gatsby desires internally and what the real world can actually provide.
This theorist is known for “variable length sessions” that disrupt the patient’s defenses and language patterns
Who is Jacques Lacan?
When Daisy finally appears human and imperfect, this starts to happen to Gatsby’s dream
What is it begins to fracture?
This key concept refers to desires and fears outside conscious awareness that still influence behavior.
What is the unconscious?
This Freudian structure governs morality and internalized social rules.
What is the superego?
How does Gatsby’s idealization of Daisy in Chapter 5 reflect Freud’s concept of unconscious desire?
According to Freud, unconscious desire drives behavior without conscious awareness. Gatsby’s actions reveal that his longing for Daisy is rooted in deeper psychological needs that he does not fully acknowledge.
His ideas about gender and sexuality are often criticized as dated and overly focused on sexuality.
Who is Sigmund Freud?
Gatsby believes this "powerful force" can be undone if he can just revive his relationship with Daisy.
What is the past?
These three parts of the mind are described as instinctual desire, reality-based control, and moral/social rules.
What are the id, ego, and superego?
This limitation of psychoanalytic criticism argues it can reduce complex characters to psychological symptoms.
What is the risk of over-symbolizing or oversimplifying characters?
How does the collapse of Gatsby’s fantasy after the reunion support a psychoanalytic reading of desire as inherently unattainable?
Once Gatsby’s fantasy confronts reality, it begins to unravel, suggesting that desire depends on distance and imagination. Psychoanalytic theory argues that desire is never fully satisfied, and Gatsby’s disappointment illustrates this fundamental psychological truth.
Who are the three major thinkers of Psychoanalysis and what are they associated with?
Sigmund Freud: The unconscious mind | id, ego, and superego | Repression and unconscious desire
Carl Jung: The collective unconscious | Archetypes shared across human experience | Introversion and extroversion personality types
Jacques Lacan: Language and its role in shaping identity and desire | Variable-length therapy sessions | Influence on literary and cultural theory
Gatsby’s reunion behavior in Chapter 5 suggests that Daisy is this, rather than a fully known and accepted person.
What is a fantasy or idealized figure?
One major limitation of psychoanalytic theory is that it may do this to complex characters, turning them into nothing but diagnoses.
What is reduce them to psychological symptoms?
This psychoanalytic principle explains why Gatsby’s desire collapses once his fantasy confronts reality.
What is the idea that desire is inherently unattainable?