Reality is the state of the world and how it really is, whereas an illusion is a false interpretation of reality. Illusions often deflect people from their sanity, as they cause them to recklessly drown away their lives in the sea of false beliefs. As a result, the outcomes for these people, and the people around them, are often awful. F.Scott Fitzgerald was proficient with the use of illusion and deception in the creation of the characters. In the novel The Great Gatsby, many of the characters build their whole lives on illusion. The characters Gatsby,Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan outline themselves with false images to escape from reality and conform with society. Gatsby tells slight fibs about his life before the fame to create the impression that he was always wealthy and successful. Tom attempts to simulate that he is a quality man with good morals when in fact he is on the flip-side. Lastly, Daisy, the sorcerer of deception, strives to come off as an unintelligent mistress of Tom but in reality she is a regular woman with feelings and morals.
In this novel, Gatsby has two lives; one that is false and one that is true that never seems to be reavled.To begin, Gatsby tells lies about his upbringing to create the great illusion that he was never in the hole or had to struggle and always had money. Jay Gatz, his real name, basically disregards his past and family that raised him to explain where his money came from. " ' I'll tell you God's truthI am the son of some wealth people in the middle-west [He explained to Nick]'''(Fitzgerald 72). Jay Gatsby is a farm boy from a poor family in North Dakota. The fact that he lived in poverty all his life bothered him so much he decided to drop out of St. Olaf College in Minnesota after only a couple weeks; he was vile towards the janitorial job he was forced to take on to pay for his tuition for the school. This shows he was creating the fantasy of his money being inherited from his dead parents from San Francisco to hide the fact that he is simply a bootlegger.