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How Fitzgerald portrays moral corruption in the Great Gatsby
How Fitzgerald portrays moral corruption in the Great Gatsby
How Fitzgerald portrays moral corruption in the Great Gatsby
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, reveals thin threads woven between himself and the novel, revealing the truth about a corrupted society filled with discontentment and superficiality. From marriages to women to an impossible dream, all these aspects of Fitzgerald’s life influences his work, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s novel quite closely resembles his own circumstances through his portrayal of the characters and the society of the 1920’s. Though Fitzgerald himself lived in a society of shallowness, he was able to portray that the emptiness in society would not bring anyone happiness. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters in The Great Gatsby to represent the people in his own life and to show that wealth causes corruption.
Mirroring his own unsuccessful love story, Fitzgerald incorporates the idea of failing marriages into his novel. ““Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to” (Fitzgerald 33).” Fitzgerald implies that marriage in the 1920’s was so corrupted by wealth that though the couples nearly hated each other, they still remained together for monetary and convenience purposes. Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda Sayre much like Daisy, married Fitzgerald for money. Until Fitzgerald started to become rich off his first novel, she had refused to marry him, much like how Daisy broke her promise to Gatsby and married Tom Buchanan. Zelda also cheated on Fitzgerald with a French naval aviator, mimicking Myrtle Wilson who pursued her own American Dream through having an affair with Tom (Willett).
Not only was Zelda portrayed in the novel but Fitzgerald himself identified a character similar to himself: Jay Gatsby. Both men spent lavishly on parties that had been held to impress the love of their ...
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... would fare in the real world, and how Zelda caused Fitzgerald great grief and strife. The novel reflects his own ideals and places them in society where they fail, as it is reality. His themes of a failing romance show he doesn’t believe in relationships or the like.
Works Cited
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Will, Barbara. "The Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word." College Literature 32.4 (2005): 125. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
Willett, Erika. "F. Scott Fitzgerald and The American Dream." PBS. PBS, Web. 16 Jan. 2014.
Samuels, Charles T. "The Greatness of ‘Gatsby'." Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: The Novel, The Critics, The Background. Ed. Henry D. Piper. Charles Schribner's Sons, New York: 1970.
“She never loved you, do you hear he cried. She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me (Fitzgerald 139)”. Tom is married to Daisy (Lisca). Even though daisy is marring Tom, Daisy has feeling for Gatsby (Lisca). Tom and Daisy relationship is wrong because they are married. People may say that Tom and Daisy does not love each other. When it was a week after their honeymoon, Tom and a girl got a wreck and the girl broke her arm and was a maid from the hotel where Tom and Daisy had their honeymoon (Lisca). Daisy was remembering a time at their wedding where the thought that tom collapse on the floor but it was someone else (Fitzgerald 136).
Like many of the greatest writers of all time F. Scott Fitzgerald implemented many of his own life experiences into his books. Fitzgerald’s life was very difficult and plagued with alcoholism, which greatly affected his relationship with his wife Zelda and his writing. Many of his most famous books, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, and Tender is the Night show the 1920’s culture that Fitzgerald lived around. The modernist period of the 1920’s was reflected in F. Scott Fitzgeralds marriage to Zelda through the now critically acclaimed The Great Gatsby.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
Sutton, Brian. "Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby." Explicator 59.1 (Fall 2000): 37-39. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 157. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
...ald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
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... of attention he gives his wife. Instead, though, he made his writings, books, etc. have a higher status over anything or anyone. The couple loved, but they did not deeply love. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Zelda, as Daisy, was very accurate. Zelda was very flirtatious and beautiful, and that is how Fitzgerald portrayed Daisy in The Great Gatsby.
Batchelor, Bob. Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Print.
Magill, Frank N. "The Great Gatsby." Magill's Survey of American Literature. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1991. Print.
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When Fitzgerald originally proposed to Zelda, she declined his proposal because he wasn’t wealthy or famous enough for her. Scott then put copious amounts of work writing and publishing his novel, This Side of Paradise and when it was finally published, along with short stories in the paper, she agreed to marry him because he was beginning to gain the success she wanted. Gatsby did the same for Daisy Buchanan. He spent almost his whole adult life gaining wealth and possessions to impress her and show her that he was good enough. Even though Daisy married Tom instead of Gatsby because of his status and financial security, Gatsby never stopped chasing after her. Jordan reveals to Nick that, “Gatsby bought the house so that Daisy would just be across the bay,” and he realizes that Gatsby has centered his
It is no surprise that Fitzgerald’s female characters were portrayed as lustful pieces property. Also, historical views about the famous American Dream shine bright through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work. Dexter and Gatsby both start out with very little money and reputation, but by the end of each composition both Dexter and Gatsby are rich and well known. This perfectly depicts the 1920’s view of the American Dream. The era was famous for making average people into stars. Characterization is not the only aspect of Fitzgerald's writing which incorporates historical social views. History is also portrayed through the settings of many of his