“The Great Gatsby” seems to be a novel that people either love or hate.

Often, the novel is hated because seemingly every high school student is forced to analyze it beyond necessity at least once.

That sort of forced dedication can lead to bitterness about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel.

I, for one, love “The Great Gatsby,” and not just because I have an undying love for Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in the 2013 film adaption. Nick Carraway narrates the novel, a writer turned business man, after he moves to New York to start a new life.

Carraway moves into a small shack that is surrounded by mansions, the biggest and brightest of which located right next-door and belonging to a mysterious man named Gatsby.

The only thing Carraway knew about this Gatsby that he loved to throw wild parties every weekend that the whole of New York would attend.

Across the lake from Carraway lived his beautiful cousin, Daisy, and her husband Tom Buchanan. Although they were a beautiful and rich couple, their marriage was anything but perfect.

Carraway soon learns that Tom has a mistress, a mechanic’s wife named Myrtle.

Carraway soon falls into the New York lifestyle of alcohol and carelessness, although always analyzing it as if he were outside of it all.

Carraway soon meets Gatsby and learns of his deepest secret, that he is in love with Daisy and moved across the lake from her in order to be close. Carraway sets up a meeting for Daisy and Gatsby and they soon start a love affair, but not without raising the suspicions of Tom Buchanan.

The overlying theme of “The Great Gatsby” that any tenth grader can tell you is indulgence.

Specifically the danger of indulgence. Jay Gatsby embodied indulgence and greed; he was a man of constant want.

More clothes, more parties, and more love. No matter how much he had, Gatsby wanted more.

But what he wanted the most was Daisy. Daisy was Gatsby’s final prize; he wanted her beyond desire, although, arguably not exactly her. Gatsby wanted what he perceived Daisy to be. So, if Gatsby had gotten Daisy, he still would not have exactly what he wanted.

Gatsby’s indulgence didn’t make him a bad person, exactly.

Everyone had desires, but not everyone had the means of getting everything they desire the second they desire it. And maybe we shouldn’t, I mean, just look what happened to Gatsby.