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Dishonesty, infidelity and hypocrisy are prominent throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. The main cause of this immorality is the change in culture after World War 1. Society went from hard working and determined people to people striving for a life of self-gratification.
Thesis: In the Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald the skewed morality of the 1920’s is represented by Jordan Baker’s dishonesty and Tom Buchannan’s hypocrisy.
Jordan Baker’s dishonesty is rooted in the desire for self-gratification. Jordan is constantly looking for ways to put herself on pedestal; to make herself feel important and special. For example, Jordan reveals to Nick that she won her golf match by cheating. Winning a golf match is the type of
Deceit and its use to achieve one’s goals is a common theme in The Great Gatsby. However, as has been shown, many who use immoral means to obtain the things they want may find themselves in undesirable situations.
The characterization of Jordan Baker as a bored, shallow woman is introduced through the use of description, word-choice, and sentence structure, and accurately represents the rest of the people Nick meets throughout the novel who fake their lives and use the cover of wealth to distract from their inner turmoil.
Being a good friend sometimes means overlooking the obvious. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel set in the 1920s. It details the story of the narrator, Nick Carraway, an aspiring bondsman who has moved to the West Egg section of Long Island from Minnesota in search of business. Nick is considered a man of "new money." He has established and now manages his own riches. He meets a particularly mysterious man, his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Through Gatsby, he meets people from the East Egg of Long Island, who are considered to be of "old money," wealth or business that has been inherited through generations. Over time, Nick and Jay become great friends. Nick helps Gatsby learn about himself and his aspirations in life, and vice versa.
McAdams, Tony. “Ethics in Gatsby: An Examination of American Values.” In Readings on The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was a novel that epitomizes the time in our history known as the roaring twenties. It was a time of great extravagances and frolicsome attitudes. The novel also revealed the darker side of this time with its underlying themes of greed and betrayal on the part of many of the characters. The novel as a whole seems to be a very well thought out piece of literature with little or no flaws. However, if studied a bit harder several defects can be spotted. These include such things as shifts in setting, sequence manipulation, and shifting of narrators.
Lies are a treacherous thing, yet everyone tells a few lies during their lifetime. Deceit surrounds us all the time; even when one reads classic literature. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald makes dishonesty a major theme in his novel The Great Gatsby. The falsehoods told by the characters in this novel leads to inevitable tragedy when the truth is revealed.
Jordan baker is a famous golfer. Nick likes Jordan Baker’s figure, high spirits, and her high classiness. Though he hates how she is dishonest. In the beginning of the story, he mainly explains things. The following quote is an example of one of her lies and also tells the reader how Nick feels about her:
There are many American novels that yield insights into human nature, but few are as honest or intriguing as Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is brilliantly composed, and involves many different personalities, but it is at the core of this novel that we find the dark secret of humanity: deception.
The act of Baker’s frequent gossip demonstrates that she is willing to talk about others, even those closest to her, regardless of the validity of the statements. Therefore, Baker has no concept of being loyal to individuals other than herself, which leads to the self-absorbed behavior resulting from the moral decay of the 1920s. On the outside, Jordan Baker appears to be just another beautiful socialite portrayed in the novel The Great Gatsby. However, after close examination it is clear that she serves a deeper purpose in the plot of the story- to represent the decaying morals that were prevalent throughout the 1920s era. Baker achieves this purpose through consistently lying, attending wild parties where she drinks bootleg liquor, and gossiping about others.
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.
As Matthew J. Bruccoli noted: “An essential aspect of the American-ness and the historicity of The Great Gatsby is that it is about money. The Land of Opportunity promised the chance for financial success.” (p. xi) The Great Gatsby is indeed about money, but it also explores its aftermath of greed. Fitzgerald detailed the corruption, deceit and illegality of life that soon pursued “the dream”. However, Fitzgerald entitles the reader to the freedom to decide whether or not the dream was ever free of corruption.
The Great Gatsby: The Destruction of Morals. In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the destruction of morals in society. The characters in this novel, all lose their morals in an attempt to find their desired place in the social world. They trade their beliefs for the hope of acceptance.
The 1920’s were a time of social and technological change. After World War II, the Victorian values were disregarded, there was an increase in alcohol consumption, and the Modernist Era was brought about. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a perfect presentation of the decaying morals of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald uses the characters in the novel--specifically the Buchanans, Jordan Baker, and Gatsby’s partygoers--to represent the theme of the moral decay of society.
One of her favorite forms of entertainment is gossip. At the first party Nick goes to he sees Jordan at the party and listens to her and several other guests gossip endlessly about the origins of their hosts. That same night Jordan is pulled aside by the host himself, Jay Gatsby. After talking to her Jordan is all too quick to tell Nick she just heard amazing news, “‘I’ve just heard the most amazing thing,’ she whispered… ‘It was simply amazing,’ she repeated abstractedly. ‘But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you,’”(52). She always has to be starting something exciting whether it be a rumor or a new adventure and she is always dragging someone into it, a definitive trait of an orange personality. Jordan is never able to do one thing or talk to the same people for more than a little while at a time. “‘Let’s get out,’ whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour; ‘this is much too polite for me,’”(45). If a situation bores her or she just wants to change settings she will up and leave in the middle of a
Fitzgerald writes, “His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew” (Fitzgerald 24). Also, when Nick relates Jordan Baker of being dishonest demonstrates as Fitzgerald addresses, “At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers--a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round” (Fitzgerald 57). Foremost, Nick states that he is honest, but is