“One Mississippi…From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five.” (Michael Lewis-). One commonly agreed upon notion is a world at peace; this can happen when you’re not quick on judging in life and being open-minded. In the poem “Mending Wall,”1914 by Robert Frost, The children’s book The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson, and the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, all have in common is that; there are characters in each who are open-minded. An example of this is when in the novel the Great Gatsby, the character Nick was always open-minded, he states this when he said- “in my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in the world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’” (Fitzgerald 1). This quote really stuck out at me, because …show more content…
However there are points where his moral values changed, for instance-“ Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich- nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. (Fitgerald 20). Even though he seems reserved, no one really is being fully open-minded in the novel The Great Gatsby because everyone went along with everything even though they all were judging each other. Another example is when Gatsby showed Daisy around his house and she started to sob about how beautiful the shirts were and realizing how her life could have been if she had never of left Gatsby in the first place. Morals can change about a person, especially when they’re in a group because they are only going to show what others want to see. So in the end, being more open-minded can change moral beliefs about a
Nick Carroway is not a very judgmental person, in fact, he himself states that he withholds judgment so that he can get the entire story out of the person to whom he is listening. To say that Nick is both approving and disapproving is not suspiring, for Nick rarely looks at things from only one perspective. Nick finds Gatsby to be ignorantly honest, in that Gatsby could not fathom the idea of saying something without really meaning it. He respects Gatsby for his determination to fit in with the East Egg crowd, though Gatsby does not realize that he does not really fit in with them. On the other hand, Nick sees Gatsby to be excessively flashy and, in the words of Holden Caulfield, 'phony.' Gatsby's whole life is a lie from the moment he left behind the name James Gatz and became Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lies about his past to try to have people perceive him as an 'old money' guy when that really is not necessary. Gatsby's valiant efforts to lure Daisy are respectable, yet they show Gatsby's failure to accept reality and give up on his long lost dream.
“He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it … It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.” (Fitzgerald 48). In chapter 4, Gatsby was riding into town with Nick, and then a police came, all Gatsby did was raised a little white paper and the cop apologized for stopping him. This isn’t only about corruption in 1920’s, but how he was above the law. He has the reputation of the president. He can get away with anything he wanted, he loves the power and the respect. When people say Gatsby it’s like he’s an imperial. The spreading rumors of Gatsby are horrific by the sense that, they were so out of this world you don’t know how people really believed them. Everybody had different point of views of Gatsby, he loves each one if the rumor didn’t contain the truth, or him being poor. His actions seem that all he wants people to do is think of him as an opulent man. Gatsby loves recognition. This makes him lose the idea of his past life which he hated. He strived to forget how he grew up, and where he came
Jay Gatsby’s funeral is a small service, not because that 's what was intended, but because no one bothered to show up. Nick wanted to give Gatsby the popularity he desired, even in death, but only three people were present in the end. Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, shows up unexpectedly from Minnesota because he heard about the news in the papers. He believes that the man who shot his son must 've been mad, that no one in their right mind could commit such a horrible act. Daisy and Wolfsheim, the people closest to Gatsby in the book, do not attend. This exemplifies that it was always about wealth and social status for them, including Tom, and they never genuinely cared for Gatsby. Nick held up hope,
In the Great Gatsby, what you refer to as Gatsbyś moral ambiguity is the result of his obsession with recapturing the past as he sees it, basically his dream. Everything else is subservient to his dream. Gatsby is so in love with Daisy that he is willing to do anything to win her. Gatsby can be a good bad evil person, but on the other hand he could be a good noice person that is what mak\es him moral ambiguity.
In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald many of the characters could not be classified as a truly moral, a person who exhibits goodness or correctness in their character and behavior. Nick Carraway is not moral by any means; he is responsible for an affair between two major characters, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Jay Gatsby does show some moral qualities when he attempts to go back and rescue Myrtle after she had been hit by Daisy. Overall Gatsby is unquestionably an immoral person. Nick Carraway and Gatsby share many immoral characteristics, but a big choice separates the two. Daisy Buchanan is an extremely immoral person; she even went to the lengths of taking someone's life. Jay and Daisy are similar but Daisy is borderline corrupt. The entire story is told through Nick Carraway's point of view and by his carelessness it is obvious the narrator possesses poor values.
One of the traits of Gatsby that makes him truly great is his remarkable capacity for hope. He has faith that what he desires will come to him if he works hard enough. He does not comprehend the cruelty and danger that is the rest of the world. Gatsby, while a man of questionable morals, is as wide-eyed and innocent as a small child in his views of the world. These ideals are evident in Nick’s narration and in the words spoken by the other characters, including Gatsby himself.
The American Dream is only achievable based on your motivation to succeed, your process in which you achieve your dream can be more important than your actual dream. Sometimes it's the journey that makes or breaks you and not the destination. The Great Gatsby, written by Fitzgerald, is based off the idea of the American Dream, and whether it's achievable to all Americans. Many seem to have their own opinions and thoughts on the idea of the American Dream. The idea of the American Dream is sought after by just about anyone. This topic is often mentioned during times of sorrow and death ,as well as through many platforms such as poems, speeches, novels, and essays. Gatsby
Characters in books can reveal the author feeling toward the world. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald suggested the moral decline of the period in America history through the interpersonal relationships among his characters. The book indicates the worthlessness of materialism, the futile quest of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America's moral values had diminished. Despite his newly acquired fortune, Gatsby's monitory means could not afford his only true wish, therefore he cannot buy everything which is important to Daisy. (Fitzgerald, -page 42) What you wish for is not always what you want or not all that glitters is gold.
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.
“So The Great Gatsby house at West Egg glittered with all the lights of the twenties, there were was always Gatsby’s supplicating hand, reaching out to make glamour with what he had lost be cruel chance...of how little Gatsby wanted at bottom-not to understand society, but to ape it”(21-22). The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald features constant parties, glamorous houses, and extravagance to reveal the values of the characters and the society they live in. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby exemplifies the innate values and morals of its characters and the society in which they live by using continual partying, glamorous houses, and extraordinary extravagance.
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.
Starting at a young age Gatsby strives to become someone of wealth and power, leading him to create a façade of success built by lies in order to reach his unrealistic dream. The way Gatsby’s perceives himself is made clear as Nick explains: “The truth was Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God… he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 98). From the beginning Gatsby puts himself beside God, believing he is capable of achieving the impossible and being what he sees as great. Gatsby blinds himself of reality by idolizing this valueless way of life, ultimately guiding him to a corrupt lifestyle. While driving, Nick observes Gatsby curiously: “He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’ or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces…” (Fitzgerald 65). To fulfill his aspirations Gatsby desires to be seen an admirable and affluent man in society wh...
Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is one of the most carefully structured stories of all time. The narrator, Nick, is a very clever and well spoken storyteller. Nick confides with the reader in the first pages of the novel. He says that he needs to tell the story of a man called Gatsby. It is as if Nick has to overcome disappointment and frustration with a man who has left him with painful memories. Nick says that, even though Gatsby did alright in the end, “it was the foul dust that collected in his wake” that disgusts him now. Nick, thus, begins the novel with uncomfortable memories. Time is a meaningful concept in this story. It is evident that dreams and memories are central to the overall plot and meaning. Secondly, the American Dream is a “green light” of desire that Gatsby never stops yearning for and something he will not forget over time, even as he is dying. This is so, even though no one cares about Gatsby or his dreams after he died, except maybe Nick. Finally, the fact that Fitzgerald uses flashback; that Nick is telling us about a main character after he has already died and before the story begins, is ultimate proof. The Great Gatsby is structured by Nick’s memory. Fitzgerald’s clever use of flashback throughout and within the novel is the greatest evidence that he intended his novel to be centered on memory and going back in time, which will be sort of a focus as we go further into this essay.
...sful no matter where they came from, but one can be blinded by success and lose sight of their morals. For Gatsby his dreams do not separate him from reality, but it is his way of life, his only focus and reason to live. For him there is not a line to distinguish right from wrong, fantasy from reality, it is all tangled into one. Thus leading to his demise. Without dreams, there is no hope, goals or meaning to life, dreams give purpose. The American Dream has been stretched from a dream to keeping up with the Jones’s and always pushing for more, the ideals collide with reality and ultimately end in failure. The Great Gatsby is a prime example of the corruption of the American Dream and its decayed moral values.
The time period the novel is set in is dubbed “The Roaring Twenties”. This was an era when people were trying new things; women smoked and drank, many men found themselves in more wealth than they had ever had before, and the recently ended World War I sent the nation into an economic growth. This very period is the complete setting for The Great Gatsby. According to Anaya, Gatsby is a 'nouveau riche', someone who only just came into a great deal of money and finds extravagant ways of showing it off. (Anaya). He does this to attract Daisy. Although Daisy herself is not a complete "flapper", he was highly influenced by them. (Anaya). When Gatsby returns, Daisy is still in love with him and, even though she is married, runs away with him, but only for a short period of time. Before the roaring 20s, this would be uunusual, but as the women's rights movements set in, it is not so uncommon of a sight. (Caldwell). Daisy can be seen as a “flapper”, a woman of the 1920’s who went out as much as men and went to great parties, like Gatsby’s. But how did Gatsby acquire his wealth in the first place? It is important to understand that in the 1920’s, alcohol had been prohibited, and people were finding ways to acquire it illegally. (Wikipedia). This made “bootleggers” a lot of money, and Gatsby is involved in such business.