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Class distinction in the novel the great gatsby
Class distinction in the novel the great gatsby
The great gatsby irony
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Social responsibility deals with the moral belief that each individual has the job to leave a positive impact on society, and more importantly they must carry out what is expected of them by society. It is about being responsible for our behavior and being mindful of the effect our behavior have on others, our communities, and the environment as a whole. For a student, that could mean being respectful and caring towards other students. For an adult, this could denote paying taxes or driving at the required speed limit. F.Scott Fitzgerald integrated the concept of social responsibility into his American Classic Novel, The Great Gatsby, to fight the infidelity, dishonesty and greed that is ruining the peace of the society. In this novel, the …show more content…
main character Jay Gatsby is vying for the attention of his old flame Daisy. But, there was one person standing in his way, and that person was Tom, Daisy’s husband.
Tom did not prove to be much of a hurdle, as Gatsby was able to reconnect with Daisy with the help of Nick Carraway the narrator, and Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend. The story of Daisy and Gatsby did not end as a happily ever after, as Gatsby ends up dead after he takes the blame for a crime Daisy committed. F. Scott Fitzgerald's theme of social responsibility in this novel is that one should not interfere in another’s marital life, and also when in a marriage, both spouses must respect their wedding vows by not cheating on each other. Fitzgerald uses the literary devices of characterization and irony help illustrate the theme of social responsibility in the novel.In The Great Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald utilizes the literary device of characterization to really stress the lack of social responsibility that the characters have. Tom Buchanan is a person that is lost when it comes to the concept of social responsibility as he engages in infidelity. He is having an affair with another woman while married to Daisy. This information is revealed to the audience in the first chapter when Jordan Baker is talking to Nick Carraway the …show more content…
narrator. She exposes Tom when she tells Nick that “Tom’s got some woman in New York” (Fitzgerald 15). From this statement, the audience can immediately characterize Tom as a dishonest person as he fails to respect his marriage vows. The readers then get a deeper glimpse of how insincere Tom is when he says to Nick in the second chapter, “I want you to meet my girl” (Fitzgerald 24). It is quite evident to the readers that Tom is not talking about Daisy as Nick had met her earlier. Tom has decided he wanted to show his mistress, Myrtle Wilson off to Nick. Another example of Tom’s social irresponsibility is portrayed when he abuses Myrtle after engaging in an argument of whether Myrtle has the right to talk about his wife. Myrtle had been taunting him about Daisy, his wife. This caused him to snap and then he “broke her nose with an More so, Jordan Baker and Daisy are also lost when it comes to social responsibility. Daisy engages in infidelity and is unfaithful to her husband. Daisy is getting reinvested into prior romantic relationship even though she is married As soon as she and Gatsby are reunited she is all about him. Nick invites to Gatsby and Daisy to his home but they become so enwrapped with one another that Nick states “they had forgotten me…. Gatsby didn't know me now at all” (96). He eventually “went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together”. (Fitzgerald 96). She is bold enough to show her loving affection towards Gatsby when her friends are around. She also had the audacity to kiss Gatsby even when husband was in the same vicinity but just in another room. Daisy invites Nick, Jordan and Gatsby for luncheon at her house and when her husband, Tom, left to get them a cold drink, she “automatically went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing on the mouth” (116). She has no respect for her marital home. To make it worse, she is even devilish. How can you commit a crime and make some else to take the fall just because the person is in love with you? This is socially unacceptable. It is wrong and unjust. Tom suggests that they all should go to city as he is suspicious that an affair is going on between his wife and Gatsby. On way to the city, Myrtle, Tom’s mistress saw Tom with Jordan in Gatsby’s car and she becomes jealous. On their way back, she runs to flag to the car down thinking that Tom was driving. But unknown to her, the group had switched cars Daisy is the one driving the car. Daisy is upset at the moment as Gatsby wants her to leave Tom for him; and she ends up hitting and killing Myrtle. Nick asks if Daisy was driving, and Gatsby replies saying yes. But immediately Immediately Gatsby states to Nick “but of course I’ll say I was” (Fitzgerald 143). This selfless action leads to his death as Tom tells Myrtle's husband that Gatsby is the one who killed his wife. To the readers, both Tom and Daisy are immoral; both individuals did not do any good to society. Another character who fails when it comes to social responsibility is Jordan Baker. She is Daisy’s friend and she’s the brain behind the secret meeting between Daisy and her lover, Gatsby. She does not only turn a blind eye on the affair, but encourages it by asking Nick on Gatsby proposal if he “will invite Daisy to his house some afternoon for him to see” (78). It is unethical for friends to wreck others’ marriages. She could have advised her to divorce Tom legally and marry Gatsby.open fist” (Fitzgerald 37). Tom is controlling, abusive and a bully and these symptoms are obstruction to a healthy relationship.The last literary device used to emphasize the theme of social responsibility was irony. First, irony was used to display the appalling state of Tom and Daisy’s marriage. Tom is secretly having an affair with his mistress, Myrtle Winton. Unknown to him, his wife Daisy is also cheating with Gatsby. Another good example of irony is when Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan are at the parlor of a suite in a hotel and they could hear the “Chords of Mendelssohn's Wedding March From the ballroom below” (127). This is ironic because Daisy and Tom's marriage is on the rocks, and the wedding bell signifies the start of a new relationship. This situation also represents sad irony as Daisy is in the hotel with Gatsby the man who she truly loves, but there will never be wedding bells for them no matter how hard Gatsby tries.
Daisy will never leave Tom as he represents the social class she wants. Tom comes from old money similar to Daisy; if Daisy left Tom she would lose her social class and automatically be disowned from the old money class of New York. Likewise, irony is used to effectively illustrate Tom Buchanan’s hypocritical nature. After Tom finds out that Daisy and Gatsby are romantically involved, he insults Gatsby left and right. He goes as far to say that, “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife” (130). His statement here is deemed ironic. He is enraged and offended that someone else is having an affair with his wife, yet he is doing the same thing to another man’s wife, Myrtle Winston. It as if Tom can cheat on Daisy, but when Daisy does it all hell breaks loose. Irony is also well utilized to show how two faced a character Tom is. When Myrtle dies, Tom immediately becomes Mr. Wilson’s right hand man. He told the policeman “I’m his friend (140)” while he had “his hands firm on Mr. Wilson’s body”.(140) This situation is ironic as Tom is putting a front that he is a good person and that Mr. Wilson can lean on him when
needed. But that was not the case at all, as Tom has been sleeping his wife with no remorse.Conclusively, it could be seen from the discussion enumerated above, F Scott Fitzgerald effectively integrates the literary devices of irony and characterization into his novel The Great Gatsby. He uses literary devices of irony and characterization to portray his theme of social responsibility that is needed to address the moral collapse exhibited in his work. He believes that individual owes the society the moral obligation to be respectful and civil, to protect and help one another, and to promote a healthy and progressive society. With his use of characterization, he portrays the ills of dishonesty, infidelity, greed and inappropriate conducts display in the novel. Similarly with his use of irony, he is able to show the hypocritical nature of Tom Buchanan, and the unfaithful behaviors of Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle in their marriages.
Her sequence of lies leads George Wilson to believe, senselessly, that this was all Gatsby’s fault. The shame of the affair eventually compels Wilson to shoot Gatsby and then commit suicide. Daisy, could have owned up to her mistakes and saved Gatsby’s life, but for Daisy Fay Buchanan, self-preservation is far more valuable than personal merit. This in fact proves “the greatest villain in the Great Gatsby is in fact Daisy herself, for her wanton lifestyle and selfish desires eventually lead to Gatsby’s death, and she has no regards for the lives she destroys” (Rosk 47). Nevertheless, Nick Carraway sees right through her disturbing ways and reflects upon the Buchanan’s. After Nick ponders a thought he muttered “They are 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 made” (Fitzgerald 170). Many people see Daisy Buchanan as a poised, pure, and elegant woman who is happily married; however, few like her cousin, Nick Carraway, suffer from knowing her true self: careless, deceptive, and selfish. Daisy is able to use money to get her out of every situation she runs
When they were married, they “spent a year in France for no particular reason” while Nick used the family wealth wisely and lived humbly. Daisy is aware that Tom is cheating on her when the phone rings and he answers because she mentions to Nick she hopes her daughter grows up to be a “beautiful little fool” (21) because ignorance is bliss. In The Great Gatsby, kids are not a significant part of the story; just like in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Dolls House”, they are simply just shown off and played with by the parents and later sent away to be taken care of while the adults did their normal activities. While Tom cheats on her with Myrtle Wilson, she does the same to him with Gatsby. When Gatsby was at the Buchanan house for drinks, as Tom left the room, Daisy grabs Gatsby and starts kissing him, proclaiming “I don't care!” (122) . She said this because she tried to show her love for Gatsby, this is not only a lie she told the others,but herself as well. Later on in the story, when she and Gatsby were driving, they ran over Myrtle Wilson and killed her but showed no signs of remorse later. Jordan Baker, a young golf player who is just as immoral as the other lavish rich people in her company , asks to see Nick after Myrtle Wilson was killed but he refuses because he is overcome with shock by the
Thesis: Through the flawed characteristics of Tom and Daisy as well as the irresponsible actions of Jordan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, it is evident that the theme “wealth can breed carelessness” causes certain characters to forget about their responsibilities and minimizes any potential forethought.
The novel The Great Gatsby displays deceitfulness in many of its characters. The deceit brings many of the characters to their downfall. Gatsby had the greatest downfall of them all due to the fact it took his life. In The Great Gatsby , “ Gatsby goes to spectacular lengths to try to achieve what Nick calls ‘his incorruptible dream’ to recapture the past by getting Daisy Buchannan love” (Sutton). Gatsby always had an infatuation with Daisy, Jordan Baker said,”Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 83). Gatsby and Daisy did have a past together. While Jordan was golfing, “The Officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime[…]His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn’t lay eyes on him for over four years-even after I’d met him in long island I didn’t realize it was the same man” (Fitzgerald 80). Daisy is now in an abusive relationship with Tom Buchannan, “Nick Carraway attends a small publicly blames Tom for the bruise on her knuckle” (Sutton). When they meet again Gatsby showers Daisy with love and affection, wanting her to leave her husband Tom, but she does not want to in their society. Tom and Gatsby get into an argument and tom tells Daisy about Gatsby’s bootlegging that brought him to his riches. Tom yelled, “He a...
Selfishness is a disease of the soul that every person experiences several times throughout their life. To say that it has never been experienced would be hypocrisy. To say that it is a “good thing”, would be erroneous. Although as humans we like to lie to ourselves, it is no question that selfishness can make any person act like a fool. It consumes us and makes us into someone we are not. Whether it leads to getting people killed, falling in love, or buying alcohol, selfishness always leads to destruction.
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.
The second character Fitzgerald analyzes is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is the definition of a dream girl, she is smart, gorgeous, and just an ideal woman to be around, and the relationship between her and Tom is quite odd (Baker). Daisy and Tom move to the fashionable East Egg from Chigaco (11). Daisy has everything a woman could wish for, a wealthy husband and an immaculate house. Daisy does not know that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Nick Carraway plays a major role in Daisy’s love life in The Great Gatsby. Nick is Daisy’s second cousin and he knew Tom from college (11). Daisy invites Nick over for dinner one evening and that is how she relearns about Jay Gatsby (11-17). Daisy met Gatsby at a dance in Louisville. They used to be madly in love with one another when he was in the army (). They had plans of always being together and being married in Louisville at Daisy’s home (118). Later in the story, Daisy was invited to go have tea at Nick’s house, but what she did not know is that it was all Gatsby’s idea to get them to rekindle their rel...
Daisy also exhibits her shallowness when she is too restless to wait for her 'love', Gatsby, to return from he war, and she marries Tom. Her most drastic immoral action is committed when she runs over Myrtle and does not even bother to stop and help a person that is 'below' her. Daisy's husband, Tom shows his ridiculous morality in different ways. One way is his search for power, which is shown most through his affair with Myrtle and his possessiveness. He evidently feels further domination and masculinity when he has her, a woman of lower class, as his mistress. Secondly, Tom Buchanan is shallow enough to think that everything and everyone he has in his life are part of his property. This increases his 'power' and makes him feel as if he is truly successful. This couple, Tom and Daisy certainly contain serious corruptness due to their shallowness and self-indulgence.
Like God observing the world, we are the observers of The Great Gatsby. According to German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s two categorical imperatives, Daisy and Jay were unethical. Kant’s categorical imperatives state; ‘Act as if your action could be elevated into universal law’ and. Based on the principles of Kant, Daisy and Jay were unethical in several ways, according to Kant’s two categorical imperatives. Daisy used people emotionally and lacked responsibility, and Jay was manipulative towards the people around him. The Great Gatsby is a great example of a society that does not abide by Kantian principles.
An example of this is when Daisy is driving and hits and kills Myrtle Wilson. When Nick asks him if Daisy is the one driving, Gatsby tells him she is but immediately says that he will take the blame. ""Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was."" (Fitzgerald 143). This conflict is how Gatsby ends up murdered, so by covering for her, Gatsby literally saves her life. Even though this is true and Daisy knows it, she still does not come to his funeral. Throughout the novel, Nick’s opinion of Gatsby constantly changes but by the end, he takes a side (and it is not Daisy’s). As Barbara Will explains, Nick sees Gatsby’s bad qualities but yet still respects him because he believes that the bad things outweigh the good. "For Nick, Gatsby's lies, his pretensions, and his corruption are "no matter"; nor is his failure to win back Daisy; what matters is the sustaining belief in the value of striving for a "wondrous" object, not its inevitable disappearance and meaninglessness." (Will). And as many readers of The Great Gatsby believe, he has his faults, yet there is no way you could hate him. "Amazingly, the novel often draws the same reaction from diverse teen readers in my classroom today, as they are disheartened to watch the mysterious gangster-turned-romantic hero meet his demise." (Ruggieri). Lastly, Gatsby is a good person in the way that he never does anything
Gatsby downfall came when he sacrificed his morality to attain wealth. Gatsby realises that the illusion of his dream with Daisy, demands wealth to become priority, and thus wealth becomes the desire overriding his need for her [Daisy’s] love. Gatsby claims to others that he has inherited his wealth, but Nick discovers "[h]is parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people" (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, pg 104) and that Gatsby has lied about his past. In a society that relies on luxuries, Gatsby throws parties to attract Daisy’s attention. Also, Gatsby expresses that same need to keep busy, just as Daisy does, in a society of the elite. Nick describes Gatsby as "never quite still, there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand" (Fitzgerald, pg 68). Gatsby fills his house "full of interesting people...who do interesting things" (Fitzgerald, pg 96). Gatsby's dream is doomed to failure in that he has lost the fundamental necessities to experience love, such as honesty and moral integrity.
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.
Myrtle is, as Daisy, impressed with Tom's wealth and appearance, but, like Jay Gatsby, is stuck in a fantastic, idealized perception of her object of affection. Even when abused and trampled over by Tom, Myrtle continues to adore him, just as Gatsby continues to dote upon Daisy after being obviously rejected by her. As far as ethical considerations, Gatsby tends to prove himself a sincere and caring person, while Daisy and Tom just destroy the lives of two people and then leave town to escape the consequences of their actions.
In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy struggles between her desire to be with someone she truly loves and her rational to be with someone who will give her social and financial stability. Ultimately, Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby as he is the safer option once Gatsby is revealed to be untruthful, showing that she is predominately interested in a steady life.
Nick is astonished at this information. He finds it hard to believe that Tom, with a beautiful wife and child, would be having an affair with some woman in the city. Miss Baker thinks “everybody knew” about the affair, yet Daisy is still with Tom. Being too ignorant to make herself believe it’s true, Daisy is willing to stay in the marriage, even when she is presented with an opportunity from Gatsby to escape. Daisy is willing to stay with Tom just because he has “old money,” and that shows how important it is to her. Everyone else’s morals are just as bad as Tom’s because they know about what’s going on and know that it’s wrong, but they don’t say anything about it. Later in the story, when Wilson is looking for the driver of the yellow car that killed Myrtle, he also suspects that person of having an affair with...