Imagination EssayImagination plays a major role in the character of Jay Gatsby, Sarty Snopes, and Harry. All three characters use imagination as a way to express their emotions and feelings. For Gatsby, imagination leads to his detriment and ultimately his death. The imagination of Sarty Snopes leads him to believe in a society of values and go against the views of his father. In a series of flashbacks Harry's mind has to deal with the emotional pain of his impending death.In Fitgerald's "The Great Gatsby", the allure of Gatsby is one of mystery at first. He is a man preoccupied by a certain vision of himself embedded in his head. The entire persona of Jay Gatsby is portrayed as a fiction in the man's mind, a vision of himself he had spent years creating. The Buchanan's base themselves solely on material things and Gatsby would seem to be exactly the opposite of this extreme, to be a man living solely according to imagination and emotion. His mansion and extravagant lifestyle are furnished for the sake of winning back Daisy, to complete a missing piece of this persona called Gatsby. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. This green light symbolizes Gatsby's lust and passion for Daisy and he imagines what he it would be like to once again have a relationship with her. In an attempt to gain Daisy's love he invites Tom and Daisy to a party of his. It is easy to see how a man who has gone to such great lengths to achieve wealth and luxury would find Daisy so alluring: for her, the aura of wealth and luxury comes effortlessly. She is able to take her position for granted, and she becomes, for Gatsby, the epitome of everything that he invented "Jay Gatsby" to achieve. Further, Gatsby impresses us with his power to make his dreams come true. As a child he dreamed of wealth and luxury, and he has attained them, although it is through criminal means. As a man, he dreams of Daisy, and for a while he wins her, too. Gatsby's power to dream lifts him above the meaningless and amoral pleasure seeking of New York society. Gatsby's capacity to dream makes him "great" despite his flaws and eventual undoing.He thinks of Daisy as the sweet girl who loved him in Louisville, blinding himself to the reality that she would never desert her own class and background to be with him. He wants Daisy to leave Tom so that he can be with her. Nick reminds Gatsby that he cannot recreate the past. Gatsby believes he can can. He thinks foolishly that his money can accomplish anything as far as Daisy is concerned. His imagination runs to rampant in this novel and inevitably leads to his death. By taking the fall for Daisy's accident with Myrtle he shows he undying love for Daisy but its too late. Gatsby is later shot and killed by Myrtle's husband. Imagination could not have been more negative for Gatsby because his fantasy of Daisy leads to his death.In Faulkner's "Barn Burning" Sarty Snopes is a young boy torn by...
