How Does Fitzgerald Use Cruelty In The Great Gatsby

Throughout the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses cruelty to argue that similar dignities exist across very socially different people and that both people of the elitist old money and the contemptible new money are capable of cruelty. In doing so, he wants us to see that wealth, or the culmination of both monetary currency and social currency, can disguise cruelty with a beautiful façade and that to successfully judge a person’s personality, one must look beyond superficial gestures and instead into the inner brutality of the person.
By associating the cruelness of Tom Buchanan with that of Meyer Wolfsheim, Fitzgerald argues that rich individuals of both old wealth and new money are capable of extreme cruelty. In fact, both characters caused the death of their wives’ lovers – Tom caused the death of Gatsby, and Wolfsheim likely caused the death of the man whose teeth Wolfsheim

wears as cufflinks (which are also associated with Tom at the end of the novel). Despite both characters being murderers, Tom, to an outsider, would seem like an aristocratic gentleman – a wealthy man who, for instance, plays polo and owns horses – and Wolfsheim would seem like a scummy gangster, when in fact, both characters are scummy. Fitzgerald’s deliberate juxtaposition of the two characters reinforces his general argument that cultural ideas of wealth are simply social constructs, and that dignity should not be determined by one’s economic worth.
Using Nick’s unusual insight into the truth of people’s personalities, Fitzgerald argues that wealth and beauty are successful in disguising cruelty and brutality from the public eye.

In Nick’s meeting with Gatsby and Wolfsheim, it is revealed that Gatsby is involved with shady business (bootlegging) and that the reason Wolfsheim likes Gatsby so much is that he appears to be the perfect gentleman, a person who would never even look at his friend’s wife. Gatsby has the face of a handsome gentleman but is willing to become covertly involved with gangsters in order to become rich. Gatsby aids the cruelty of the underground organization, which rigs sports games and does other illicit things, but, on the surface, Gatsby appears to be upper-class, almost like an East Egger. The public seems to find it strange that Gatsby, who appears to be a gentleman, lives on West Egg, and thus constantly speculates often ridiculous stories about Gatsby’s origins. Fitzgerald does this to show that, even though people may not be able to see past the disguise of beauty, they may unsuccessfully speculate the

truth.
By showing the power of the facades wealth can create, preserving and protecting beauty, Fitzgerald wants us to see that perceptions of social class should not influence one’s idea of dignity. Despite Tom and Daisy both being murderers, their wealth protects them from social incrimination; several days after they each committed murder, they simply left East Egg without leaving a way to contact them, using their wealth to provide an easy escape. And, despite their cruelty, people still strive to live like them, especially people like Gatsby. People confuse the beauty of the wealthy with their dignity. Fitzgerald argues that those without money cannot mask their cruelty, such as Wilson knowing there was no future for him if he killed Gatsby, and that those with money but without social wealth cannot mask their cruelty without constructing a façade of wealth. Wolfsheim, who may perhaps have as much money as Tom Buchanan, evidently needs a gentlemanly face, the face of Gatsby, to best facilitate his operations. Throughout the whole novel, Fitzgerald shows that, even though most wealthy people are rotten on the inside, people still strive to be like them. In doing so, he argues that the cultural notions of the dignity of members of the social class in the 1920s are so skewed that, even for a man with old money (Nick), sometimes it becomes difficult to see the truth of one’s own moral character.