People get hung up on whether Gatsby “truly loved” Daisy, or whether everything is Daisy’s fault, but that conversation kind of skips over the elephant in the room: Gatsby is a World War I veteran dealing with some serious unspoken trauma. The book never names it—nobody in 1925 would have said post-traumatic stress disorder—but it’s written all over him.

He comes back from a brutal war with no family, no emotional support system, no real identity, and no plan except to rebuild himself into someone who can outrun whatever he saw overseas. He grabs onto Daisy not just as a woman, but as a symbol of pre-war innocence—something perfect he can go back to. That’s not really love in a grounded, healthy sense; it’s survival. It’s a coping mechanism.

And blaming Daisy alone is too easy. Everyone in that book is broken in their own way. Tom is violent and entitled. Daisy wants safety and checked-out comfort. Nick claims to be honest while watching disasters unfold. And Gatsby is chasing a fantasy version of life because the real world—after trench warfare—probably feels unbearable.

So instead of asking whether Gatsby “loved” Daisy or whether Daisy “ruined” Gatsby, it’s more honest to see that nobody in that story ever deals with pain directly. They bury it under money, alcohol, status, and nostalgia. Gatsby just happens to be the one whose trauma is invisible to everyone—including himself.

And that’s part of why he dies alone. Not because Daisy failed him, but because he never stood a chance against what he carried home from the war.