The decline of the wealthy’s morality in The Great Gatsby The novel, The Great Gatsby, is written with many dimensions and a complex underlying meaning pertaining to morality. Fitzgerald’s writing through the narrator has a unique viewpoint on morality compared to the rest of the characters met in the story. Throughout the whole book Fitzgerald is hinting to the morality of each of the characters. In The Great Gatsby there is a theme in the corruption of each of the characters. The moral corruption throughout the novel is seemingly caused by wealth. The novel has major evidence to back up the viewpoint that the decline of morality in the characters is due to wealth. In the novel Gatsby says,” She only married you because I was poor and …show more content…
she was tired of waiting.” (Fitzgerald 130) In the book Gatsby literally comes out and says that Daisy didn’t love him because he was poor. That really shows how shallow daisy was to just marry anybody with money. If Daisy really did love Gatsby she chose money over love. In the novel the narrator states, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (Fitzgerald 179) This point of view from the narrator really explains how immoral Daisy and Tom are. He comes out and says they don’t care what they do and who they hurt, they just do it and retreat back to their money. Another example of how money affects morality is when the narrator explains why Daisy choose Tom. In the novel Fitzgerald writes, “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately and the decision must be made by some force of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality that was close at hand.” (151) Daisy’s decision was money because she chose to marry Tom. Gatsby was poor at the time, so even though she loved him Daisy didn’t marry him because she was driven by Tom’s money. The good moral decision would have been to marry for love, but the money drove Daisy to make the immoral decision. This supports the theme that the corruption of the morals of the character is due to money. In The Great Gatsby the morality is at complete extremes between Nick, the narrator, and all the other characters.
Poet T.S. Eliot poem is based on The Great Gatsby, “”The Wasteland” describes the decline of Western civilization and its lack of spirituality the objective correlative of the wasteland.” (The Great Gatsby Novels) The poet literally calls the setting of The Great Gatsby a wasteland, and the lack of spirituality creates corrupted morals. In one source they even say, “There is no real love between Gatsby and Daisy.” (The Great Gatsby Novels) Daisy’s thoughts completely changed about Gatsby after she saw his house and how wealthy he was. When they first met she was very awkward and didn’t really want to speak to him, but when she saw his house everything changed. This shows there was no real love between Gatsby and Daisy and that Daisy was very shallow and only said she loved Gatsby because of his wealth. In the Novels For Students source it states, “The wealthy class is morally corrupt in The Great Gatsby.” (The Great Gatsby Novels) This literally comes out and states that the theme of moral corruption of the wealthy is true, and because they have a lot of money they have been made corrupt. In The Great Gatsby the wealthy class is very self centered and will do anything for more money even fake love, then drop the person when you stop benefiting from
them. Critics also agree that the mortality was completely due to the level of the characters wealth. In one article it says, “despite his association with underworld characters and ill-begotten money.” (The Great Gatsby Twentieth-Century) This shows that to gain his great wealth Gatsby did immoral things. This completely supports the statement that wealth causes people to lose their morality. The article goes on to talk about the narrator, “Nick, the midwestern moral arbiter, disdains Gatsby’s values.” (The Great Gatsby Twentieth Century) Nick doesn’t have a lot of money so he is very moral, and he disapproves of the ways Gatsby gets his money. Gatsby is so absorbed in his money he is willing to do anything even break the law to get it. Nick disapproves of this and tries to earn his money the fair way, which is why he is not very successful. Nick even gets an offer from one of Gatsby’s business partners, but declines before he can hear it. Nick is this moral because of his lack of wealth. In conclusion the characters become more and more immoral the more wealth they have. Daisy saw an opportunity to marry Tom and get wealthy and she took it. Then when Gatsby had even more money than Tom she decided to leave Tom for Gatsby. Finally when Daisy killed Myrtle she let Gatsby take the blame and completely left him when he was of no further use to her, she didn’t even care when he died. This truly supports the theme that the more money a person has the more corrupt and immoral they are. Daisy was so immoral and fickle she would go to any person that had the best offer for her regardless of other factors. The novel The Great Gatsby really puts a new viewpoint on wealth and its connection to immorality as portrayed through the characters and the narrator.
In conclusion, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows examples of characters that experience the corruption of morality and humanity, by emphasizing the way main characters such as Gatsby, Daisy, and/or, Nick, feel after interacting with other characters and also how they treat
During the time in our country's history called the roaring twenties, society had a new obsession, money. Just shortly after the great depression, people's focus now fell on wealth and success in the economic realm. Many Americans would stop at nothing to become rich and money was the new factor in separation of classes within society. Wealth was a direct reflection of how successful a person really was and now became what many people strived to be, to be rich. Wealth became the new stable in the "American dream" that people yearned and chased after all their lives. In the novel entitled the great Gatsby, the ideals of the so called American dream became skewed, as a result of the greediness and desires of the main characters to become rich and wealthy. These character placed throughout the novel emphasize the true value money has on a persons place in society making wealth a state of mind.
The Great Gatsby can be a morality tale, as most human vices are present; drunkenness, corruption, lust, greed, murder, and cheating. In the period following the war, many scholars commented on the moral aspect of the Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a moral critique of the Roaring Twenties, with its lavish parties and rampant corruption. Gatsby, himself, is a great example of this morality in play. He allows his infatuation with Daisy lead him down a path of criminality to achieve the social class that Daisy would need to be married to him.
In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald many of the characters could not be classified as a truly moral, a person who exhibits goodness or correctness in their character and behavior. Nick Carraway is not moral by any means; he is responsible for an affair between two major characters, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Jay Gatsby does show some moral qualities when he attempts to go back and rescue Myrtle after she had been hit by Daisy. Overall Gatsby is unquestionably an immoral person. Nick Carraway and Gatsby share many immoral characteristics, but a big choice separates the two. Daisy Buchanan is an extremely immoral person; she even went to the lengths of taking someone's life. Jay and Daisy are similar but Daisy is borderline corrupt. The entire story is told through Nick Carraway's point of view and by his carelessness it is obvious the narrator possesses poor values.
During Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it is apparent to be an absurd time for the wealthy. The shallowness of money, riches, and a place in a higher social class were probably the most important components in most lives at that period of time. This is expressed clearly by Fitzgerald, especially through his characters, which include Myrtle Wilson, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and of course, Jay Gatsby. This novel was obviously written to criticize and condemn the ethics of the rich.
‘The Great Gatsby’ is social satire commentary of America which reveals its collapse from a nation of infinite hope and opportunity to a place of moral destitution and corruption during the Jazz Age. It concentrates on people of a certain class, time and place, the individual attitudes of those people and their inner desires which cause conflict to the conventional values, defined by the society they live in. Gatsby is unwilling to combine his desires with the moral values of society and instead made his money in underhanded schemes, illegal activities, and by hurting many people to achieve the illusion of his perfect dream.
People say that "money makes the world go around." It may, but in the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money is what causes greed and death. The novel is filled with multiple themes but one predominate theme that the author focuses on is immorality. The novel was written in the1920s which was a time that drew away from social and moral values and yearned for its greed and empty pursuit of pleasure. Gatsby, gains his wealth through bootlegging only because he wants to show Daisy his wealth. Sadly, his determination for his love is what gets him killed. The author uses different characters throughout the novel to present his theme. Symbols can also be found in The Great Gatsby. An example would be West Egg which represents the recent rich and East Egg which represents the established upper classes. The West Egg and East Egg symbolize the different social status of society.
Most self respecting people have ethics and morals they try to abide by. They create standards that they live life by and construct their own philosophy with. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, morals and ethics are a scarce practice. Jay Gatsby lives his life by the over bearing morals and values of devotion, corruption, and his will to control.
As Matthew J. Bruccoli noted: “An essential aspect of the American-ness and the historicity of The Great Gatsby is that it is about money. The Land of Opportunity promised the chance for financial success.” (p. xi) The Great Gatsby is indeed about money, but it also explores its aftermath of greed. Fitzgerald detailed the corruption, deceit and illegality of life that soon pursued “the dream”. However, Fitzgerald entitles the reader to the freedom to decide whether or not the dream was ever free of corruption.
In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.
The novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides the reader with a character that possesses qualities both challenging to understand and difficult to endorse. These characteristics show themselves through the character’s desire and passion to pursue his dream. Jay Gatsby, an elusive, persuasive, and sometimes deceptive man displays such contrast in his moral foundation that leaves the reader questioning his true motives at nearly every action. There is an argument to be made that Gatsby is both great and not so great, making him the epitome of moral ambiguity. For example, Nick, another major character, who happens to be the narrator of the story, first describes Gatsby in the opening chapter of the novel as someone who he both
In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the destruction of morals in society. The characters in this novel, all lose their morals in attempt to find their desired place in the social world. They trade their beliefs for the hope of being acceptance. Myrtle believes she can scorn her true social class in an attempt to be accepted into Ton's, Jay Gatsby who bases his whole life on buying love with wealth, and Daisy, who instead of marrying the man she truly loves, marries someone with wealth. The romance of money lures the characters in The Great Gatsby into surrendering their values, but in the end, "the streets paved with gold led to a dead end" (Vogue, December 1999).
Scott Fitzgerald also explores a moral issue, but regarding a different facet of life. The Great Gatsby tells of Jay Gatsby 's desperate efforts to reunite himself with the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. The obstacle comes in when it is learned that Daisy is already married to another man. Despite this fact, Gatsby goes to great lengths to win the heart of Daisy. Jay came from a very poor and humble background while Daisy came from the complete opposite. After the war that separated the two lovers was over, Gatsby made a fortune from an illegal source, which is assumed to be bootlegging, to try to capture the attention of Daisy. Fitzgerald explores a moral issue through Gatsby in that to some, the act of committing a crime to obtain a desired outcome is wrong. Fitzgerald, however does not write the novel to foment that mentality. The novel is written in a way that Gatsby is seen through a bright light and that his actions could be justified due to his somewhat noble ambitions. This brings on the matter if anything incorrect could ever be justified or accepted due to the hope of a noble outcome. Fitzgerald brought this concept into question with the entire creation of the Jay Gatsby 's
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism underlying and moral corruption society. The idea of the American dream is the ideal that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life,
The moral decay of society during the 1920’s was represented through the characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. People became selfish as their wealth increased, and they didn’t care at all what they did to other people, as long as they ended up okay in the end. Dishonesty became accepted, and that led to a downfall of society. Because of the character’s lack of morals and responsibility, Gatsby, an innocent man, died.