The main theme of resilience in the novel stemmed from The Great Gatsby and his self-motivation to live the American dream. Daisy was the embodiment of everything he wanted in life and he was determined to win her.
On pg. 63 Nick stated, "It was a strange coincidence," I said.
"But it wasn't a coincidence at all."
"Why not?"
"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay."
He was resilient enough to never give up his dream of reuniting with her and even bought a house across the bay from her in hopes that she'd attend one of his parties.
Each character in The Great Gatsby showed resilience in their own unique way.
Nick showed resilience and strength when he realized that the people he surrounded himself with had very poor values. He was a quiet man for the majority of the book but spoke up when he realized something was wrong. “They’re a rotten crowd”, I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”. He also showed resilience by dumping Jordan for her poor values even though he was “half in love with her”, he did what he knew was right even if it was hard. This takes a lot of strength and resilience. He would rather maintain his self respect than be wealthy. In some odd way Myrtle also shows resilience by going great lengths to be a part of the wealthy culture even when it was proven to be very difficult. Even Daisy showed resilience by bouncing back so quickly when she found out about Tom's affair, even if she was being resilient for all the wrong reasons.
The concept of resilience can be very loosely linked to many themes in The Great Gatsby. Love is the major theme of the novel and can be connected to resilience solely because of Jay and his efforts to keep his love with Daisy alive. The theme of isolation can also be connected to resilience because everyone in the story was so resilient for the wrong reasons (for wealth or power) and they all ended up dying alone anyways.
My interpretation of what the author is saying about resilience in people's lives is that it's not always a super positive thing. Although resilience is a great trait to have, being resilient about the wrong thing is simply asking for chaos.
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