Flaws of Perception in Society: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1123 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A brave new world essay

Society nowadays can conform anyone, into whoever they want a person to be.Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, there is an interconnecting theme of the flaws of perception in society. This theme is shown with various characters throughout The Great Gatsby such as characters having their own perception as to who the main character, Jay Gatsby is, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale it is shown in the way of how the knight judges his wife based off of her physical age and beauty within, and in Brave New World, Bernard, one of the main characters, is in shock of what the reality of this “utopian” society everyone believes they live in actually is, he sees how messed up everything and everyone is, yet people deem him as the crazy one.
In The Great Gatsby, readers can see evidence of society misperceiving somebody in the way that no person seems to really know who Jay Gatsby is. When Nick Carraway, his neighbor, comes to one of his house parties for the first time, he is told several different stories regarding the identity and personal history of the party host. At the first party Nick attends, Nick’s friend Jordan Baker, accompanied by two girls in yellow dresses, share how “they thought he killed a man once” (Fitzgerald 44). One of the two girls, Lucille, then interjects with a different side to the story. “I don’t think it’s so much that, it’s more that he was a German spy during the war” (Fitzgerald 44). Immediately following that interjection, another opposing idea is introduced of Jay Gatsby being in the American army during the war, not the German army like is previously thought. As Nick wanders throughout the party, he overhears many addi...

... middle of paper ...

...ht opinion to give. We are taught one idea of how to live but once we begin to live in that way we then are judged. Cast out for what we have acknowledged as a truth to our own individual self.
In conclusion throughout The Great Gatsby, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and Brave New World, flaws of perception in society was a dominant theme found in the three literary texts. There were various flaws present in the texts, such as perception of a person’s identity and past, as found in The Great Gatsby; a person’s personal beauty, as examined in The Wife of Bath’s Tale; and

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Wife of Bath's Tale." Canterbury Tales. McDougal Littell Literature British Literature, 2012. Print. 180-192.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1st ed. New York: Scribner, 1925. Print.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perenial, 1969. Print.

Show More
Related

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

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Lies and Fortune: A Theme Paper over The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    Is living a life a fake life of fame and fortune worth all of the pain of the lies? This is a question that many characters face throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby. They have to make tough decisions deciding if all of it is worth the suffering, or should they continue living a normal life? Throughout the book there are many characters who lie and cheat. Even though each character cheats in his or her own different way they all do it for the same reason, which is to be wealthy and have high social class. The theme for this novel is sometimes it is worse to live a life full of lies and riches than to live a life of normality.

    Read More

  • Essay On Daisy's Expectations In The Great Gatsby

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is an emotional tale of hope of love and “romantic readiness”(1.2) that is both admirable and meritorious .Yet, the question of Daisy ever being able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations is one that reverberates throughout the course of the novel. Be that as it may, Daisy is never truly able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations because the image of Daisy in Gatsby’s mind is entirely different from who she actually is. Even during his younger years, Gatsby had always had a vision of himself “as a son of God”(6.98) and that “he must be about his fathers business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty”(6.98). Gatsby’s desire for aristocracy, wealth, and luxury is exactly what drives him to pursue Daisy who embodies everything that that Gatsby desires and worked towards achieving. Therefore, Gatsby sees Daisy as the final piece to his puzzle in order realize his vision. Gatsby’s hyperbolized expectation of Daisy throws light on the notion if our dreams as individuals are actually limited by reality. Since our dreams as human beings are never truly realized, because they may be lacking a specific element. Daisy proves to be that element that lingers in Gatsby’s dreams but eludes his reality.

    Read More

  • Free Great Gatsby Essays: A Very Insecure Gatsby

    423 Words  | 1 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby many characters are not as they seem.  The one character that intrigues me the most is James Gatsby.  In the story Gatsby is always thought of as rich, confident, and very popular.  However, when I paint a picture of him in my mind I see someone very different.  In fact, I see the opposite of what everyone portrays him to be.  I see someone who has very little confidence and who tries to fit in the best he can.  There are several scenes in which this observation is very obvious to me.  It is clear that Gatsby is not the man that everyone claims he is.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Recklessness In The Great Gatsby

    1372 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone in the world is different. People have come to acknowledge the variety of differences that comes to surround one today. Differences do not always mean race or religion, but rather the individual characteristics that make up one specific person. Everyone has characteristics of themselves that are either the best or the worst. The good traits are usually concealed and hidden because people mainly focus on the negative sides of people. Conversely, the worst trait is more visible and apparent to the eye. In literature, the same applies, but the bad trait leads to larger ramifications for a character and others around them. In F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the recurring trait of recklessness is found throughout the classy and lavish denizens of

    Read More

  • Gatsby's Mysterious Nature in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    It is human nature for people to question the character of those around them, and in Gatsby’s case, his friends did not have much information about him. Since little is known about Gatsby, his neighbor, Nick, must depend on misleading rumors about the man of mystery. At one of Gatsby’s glamorous parties, a group of women gossip, “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was the nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil” (61). Other guest place Gatsby as an illegal bootlegger or as a German spy during the war. While some of these stories may be true to his past, most are the outcome of society’s ignorance of Gatsby.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Interpersonal Communication In The Great Gatsby

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    A self-concept is the way in which one think about one’s self and the way in which one sees themselves as a person. In The Great Gatsby, the main character falsifies his identity so elaborately that he completely lacks a sense of self, creating a self-concept that is skewed to many different influences and variable in his life. Adler argues that a self-concept is developed by comparing our “real self” with an idealized view of who one thinks they should be and how they should act. (Paci, Lecture Slides) For the character of Gatsby, this “real self” is not enough to win over his love, and therefore not enough to satisfy him. There are steps required to create one’s ideal self, including a social role, character growth and finally, lifestyle changes. First of all, Gatsby’s ideal self must fit into what is classified as a social role. A social role is a set of connected behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualised by people in a social situation, and Gatsby accepts his social role when he interpersonally decides that it is the only way to achieve his desires. In Gatsby’s early life, this is an unattainable version of himself so he moulds his identity into an ideal that Daisy approves

    Read More

  • The Traits of Jay Gatsby

    1167 Words  | 3 Pages

    When looking at Jay Gatsby, one sees many different personalities and ideals. There is the gracious host, the ruthless bootlegger, the hopeless romantic, and beneath it all, there is James Gatz of North Dakota. The many faces of Gatsby make a reader question whether they truly know Gatsby as a person. Many people question what exactly made Jay Gatsby so “great.” These different personas, when viewed separately, are quite unremarkable in their own ways.

    Read More

  • Role of Women in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and The Wife of Bath’s Tale

    1648 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale. Geoffery Chaucer. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 375-408. Print.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    In life, we ask ourselves the question what we are? In addition, we also ask ourselves how our perspectives allow us to see this world? These questions are an opening idea’s, which requires the person answering it, to be fully aware of his or her life, and then have the ability to judge it without any personal bias. This is why, in the book that was and is in a sense is still talked about in class, The Great Gatsby, which is a book that follows a plethora of charters all being narrated by, Nick Caraway, a character of the book The Great Gatsby. Nick Caraway is the character in the book which judges and describes his and other character’s actions and virtues. Now we speak of a character whose name is Jay Gatsby or other whys known as James Gatz, which is one of the characters that Mr. Caraway, seems to be infatuated with from the start of the book. This character Jay Gatsby develops a perspective, which in his view seems to justify his actions by the way that he saw the world that he was living in. In this essay, I will explain why the ambitions of a person, can lead them to do things that are beyond there normal character.

    Read More

  • The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Clerk’s Tale

    1778 Words  | 4 Pages

    "The Wife of Bath's Tale." The Canterbury Tales. New York: Viking, 2009. . Web. Jan. & Feb.

    Read More

  • Women in the Canterbury Tales

    2217 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2000. 87-98.

    Read More

  • Moral Criticism In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    The picture is trying to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald discontent for the moral decay that occurred in the 1920s by the face with the appearance of wealth, the colorful, inviting, and bright city, and the variety of colors used throughout the picture.

    Read More

  • Love in Knight's Tale and Wife of Bath's Tale

    1532 Words  | 4 Pages

    Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

    Read More

  • Nick's Evolving Perceptions of Gatsby in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    The line of attack we use in order to identify individuals around us is an intriguing thing. Our perception is forever shifting, forever building, and affected not only by the person’s actions, but by the actions of those around them. In Scott F. Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby Nick Caraway’s perception of Jay Gatsby is always changing. All the way through the novel, Nick’s perception of Gatsby changes from him perceived as a rich chap, to a man that lives in the past, to a man trying to achieve his aspirations but has failed.

    Read More

More about Flaws of Perception in Society: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Open Document