Façade and Lies: A Theme in F. Scott Fitzgerald´s The Great Gatsby

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said this and this quote has greatly influenced the theme statement for this paper. The theme statement for this paper on the Great Gatsby is some people are willing to put up a false façade in order to become something they think is better and they lose their true selves in the long run. This paper will go through three examples of putting up a false façade. First the paper will go through Jay Gatsby, then Nick Carraway and finally the paper will wrap up with the parties that Gatsby throws.

The first example exists as follows; Jay Gatsby lies about whom he really is. He puts up the façade that he is from a rich family and even says it on page 65 “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Midwest, all dead now. I was brought up in America, but educated at Oxford.” Later in the book we find out that his real name is James Gatz. Gatz is a poor Minnesota boy who got rich from bootlegging. After becoming rich off of his illicit bootlegging business he changed his name to Jay Gatsby. He altered himself for one thing: his delusion of getting Daisy. Gatsby created a false façade to astonish Daisy and to win her over. Then he found out that Daisy had married Tom and that all of his strenuous work was for utterly nothing. We furthermore find out that he lets people conjecture things about him similar to this quote from page 44 “ You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking at him. I'll bet he killed a man." The exchange is between a few ...

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...age 39 “And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.” Instead of being just like the upper class that just goes about their business he takes time to acknowledge the servants. He notices what the servants are doing, when they are coming, and how many of them are coming. He takes time to look at the servants and acknowledge their presence unlike his superior class that he tries so desperately to conform to but every once in a while he slips up just the tiniest bit and we can see it.
In deduction, the book shows how putting up a façade can affect the rest of your paths in life. Whether it is fashioning a new person like Gatsby did or not acknowledging who you are like Nick does.

Works Cited

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald