Master Manipulators: People learn how to manipulate before they even learn how to talk. Children are masterminds at manipulation, people might not even realize they are doing it. From getting something as small as a cookie to getting something as big as a car. They are trained to use methods to achieve their goals. “The Fisherman and His Wife” by Bennett, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, Eight Men Out produced by Sayles, prove one should not take advantage of people or their kindness. There could be consequences, and the punishment will be severe. In “The Fisherman and His Wife,” Alice exploits the goodwill of others, orchestrating chaos in everyone’s life. While Alice argues with the Fisherman, the reader can recognize how greedy Alice truly …show more content…
Alice knows the characters will do as she says to make her happy. Every time she wants something bigger or better, she will find a way to get it. In the process of exploiting the characters, everything she has received is taken back because she is punished for her actions. She ultimately needs to learn nothing that will be able to satisfy her. Through the use of exploitation, the author can show the reader the damage that can be caused by being as selfish as Alice. Introducing the theme of exploitation, the reader can see Myrtle benefiting from the affair she has with Tom, in The Great Gatsby. Myrtle in The Great Gatsby, takes advantage of the affair she has with Tom, manipulating him for his money. While Myrtle asks Tom for a dog to complete their apartment, the reader recognizes Myrtle is benefiting from having an affair with Tom. “‘I want to get one of those dogs,’ Myrtle said earnestly. I want to get one for the apartment. They’re nice to have — a dog,’” (Fitzgerald, 27). In illustrating this scene, the reader can recognize Myrtle's true advances and exploitation to get what she wants from …show more content…
Myrtle learns Tom will never leave Daisy for her and marry someone from the Valley of Ashes. Making all her ceaseless efforts to steal Tom from Daisy worthless, because she gets killed. Through the use of Myrtle’s character, the reader can see there will always be consequences when taking advantage of a situation. Characters similar to Myrtle from The Great Gatsby are the 1919 White Sox baseball players, who take advantage of the World Series leaving them punished at the end. In the movie, Eight Men Out by Sayles, eight baseball players misuse their talents, leaving them with no careers and no money. During the fix, the director portrays the player’s willingness to lose games in order to be paid more money than they make in a season. In other words, the players decided they would take 10 grand from gamblers, Abe and Sullivan, to lose a couple of games to make double of what they were originally promised. After Abe and Sullivan lost their money betting, there was an unexpected White Sox win. No one got paid
A more thorough investigation of The Great Gatsby is necessary to uncover a well-disguised theme by Fitzgerald in this work. Upon a simple read through one would probably not notice the great similarities of Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson, but the two characters seemed to have the same agenda for their lives. While Gatsby took the route of acquiring money at all costs to join the upper class of society and to be acceptable in the eyes of a woman, Myrtle chose to make her way up in society at the cost of her marriage by attaching herself to money. The underlying question is who had the most success.
Lying has deadly effects on both the individual who lies and those around them. This concept is demonstrated in The Great Gatsby. Although Gatsby, Tom and Myrtle have different motives for being deceitful, they all lie in order to fulfill their desires and personal needs. Myrtle’s desire to be wealthy is illustrated when she first meets Tom, dressed in his expensive clothing, as her attitude changes when she puts on the luxurious dress and when she encourages Tom to buy her a dog. Tom’s deception is clear when he hides his affair with Myrtle by placing Myrtle in a different train, withholding the truth from Mr. Wilson of the affair and convincing Myrtle and Catherine that he will one day marry Myrtle. Gatsby tries to convince himself and others that he is the son of wealthy people, he creates an appearance that he is a successful, educated man through the books in his library and assures himself that Daisy loves him. Tom’s dishonesty reveals that he is selfish, while Gatsby’s distortions expose his insecurities, and Myrtle’s misrepresentations show that her sole focus in life is to achieve materialistic success. Gatsby and Myrtle both lie in order to obtain the “American dream.” However, Tom, who appears to already have achieved the “American dream”, deceives others out of boredom and because he takes his wealthy lifestyle for granted. F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the human flaw of dishonesty for personal gain and how lies have inevitably tragic consequences in his characterization of Gatsby, Myrtle and Tom.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, paints vivid picture of the lives of upper and lower classes together and their interactions during the Roaring 20’s. Fitzgerald does this by showing the readers the true nature and purpose behind the upper class and the manipulation they use against anyone lower than them. An example of this manipulation would be Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man married to Daisy Buchanan, lying George Wilson, a lowly poor individual running a mechanics shop, about selling a car, just to see the man’s wife. This poor man, Wilson, lives in “The Valley of Ashes”, an almost desolate area on the way to New York from West and East Egg. This valley is a representation of the manipulation and reckless behavior of the upper class. Through The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a picture of the 1920’s by portraying the upper class as immoral and careless through their actions, and their opinions.
As depicted by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the 1920s is an era of a great downfall both socially and morally. As the rich get richer, the poor remain to fend for themselves, with no help of any kind coming their way. Throughout Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the two “breeds” of wealthier folk consistently butt heads in an ongoing battle of varying lifestyles. The West Eggers, best represented by Jay Gatsby, are the newly rich, with little to no sense of class or taste. Their polar opposites, the East Eggers, are signified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan; these people have inherited their riches from the country’s wealthiest old families and treat their money with dignity and social grace. Money, a mere object in the hands of the newly wealthy, is unconscientiously squandered by Gatsby in an effort to bring his only source of happiness, Daisy, into his life once again. Over the course of his countless wild parties, he dissipates thousands upon thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to attract Daisy’s attention. For Gatsby, the only way he could capture this happiness is to achieve his personal “American Dream” and end up with Daisy in his arms. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is somewhat detrimental to himself and the ones around him; his actions destroy relationships and ultimately get two people killed.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly evident, as his view of Gatsby’s actions seems to arbitrarily shift between disapproval and approval. Nick is an unreliable and hypocritical narrator who disputes his own background information and subjectively depicts Gatsby as a benevolent and charismatic host while ignoring his flaws and immorality from illegal activities. He refuses to seriously contemplate Gatsby’s negative attributes because of their strong mutual friendship and he is blinded by an unrealized faith in Gatsby. Furthermore, his multitude of discrepancies damage his ethos appeal and contribute to his lack of dependability.
Myrtle Wilson takes on the task of gaining social status and wealth in a corrupt way. Myrtle Wilson betrays her husband to climb the ladder of wealth. Tom Buchanan becomes used by Myrtle to acquire glistening mounds of wealth. “Myrtle Wilson does not have many material items. She has a loyal husband, but Myrtle wants everything else… She feels she deserves more; she feels that she deserves more; she feels she deserves Tom, his money, power, and influence” (Dawson). Myrtle Wilson’s intentions become obvious during The Great Gatsby. If Myrtle Wilson wanted love, she could have looked to her husband, George Wilson, who truly loved her. Her dream of wealth, however, dominated her desire of love. Myrtle could have easily ended her relationship with Tom due to his frequent violence if it was simply about love. Myrtle could endure the violence if it meant she could achieve her American
In conclusion to this essay (I hope you enjoy listening to my rants) I showed you how the people in this book are willing to do anything to get what they want. I showed you this by using three examples: Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy, Nick being a push over/mooch and finally Myrtle using Tom for his life style.
They are both born into impoverished families, but deny acceptance of their lower status. Myrtle and Gatsby also share similar aspirations, to gain money and higher status. They are attempting to rise above their social class. Fitzgerald’s interpretation of Gatsby however, is much different from his portrayal of Gatsby. Gatsby is a tragic hero. He has nothing but good intentions and aspires for love, while Myrtle is simply shown as a foolish woman who is so absorbed in greed that she sacrifices her morals and sanity, in exchange for money and higher status. Gatsby, unlike Myrtle, maintains redeemable qualities until his murder. Everything he does is for his love, Daisy, because he wants only the best for her even if his life turns to ruins as a result. In contrast, Myrtle who has the same aspirations as Gatsby, exhibits impure intentions. She wants to achieve her goals of becoming a wealthy, elite member of society, purely to feed her selfish, eager desires, at the cost of her husbands’ sanity. This is what removes any sympathy a person may have had for Myrtle. She is depicted as a silly imbecile who cheats her way out her marriage and into her
Myrtle was born in and lives in the lower, working class, which is why she is used a direct representation of the lower class by Fitzgerald. Myrtle is a woman who lives in the “valley of ashes” in the book, which is supposed to show her poverty. She always thinks that she is better than the lower class and dreams to escape it. There are two ways she plans on escaping it: through her relationship with Tom or through actual hard work. These both seem to the reader like ways that might possibly be successful for Myrtle to complete her dream. When the character is first introduced as Tom’s mistress, it appears as though this relationship might actually go somewhere serious and this might be her escape route when it says that they would “get a divorce” from their current spouses “and get married to each other right away” if it were not for Tom’s wife who “[doesn’t] believe in divorce” (33). This builds the expectation that Myrtle might actually have a way out of the lower class, which heightens the situational irony at the end of the novel. Another thing that builds hope for Myrtle is her hard work and “vitality that [is] so remarkable in the garage” (30). This makes the reader think that by pumping gas and working hard she might actually make it out of the lower class. Both of these possibilities are destroyed when “her life [was] violently extinguished” when she gets hit by a car, ironically driven by Daisey (137). This is such a tragic turnaround that no one expects it, which is how Fitzgerald uses situational irony to make his readers realize the falsehood of the American dream. Fitzgerald wants his readers to snap out of their own dreams in believing that they can do anything they dream of. Gatsby also comes out of poverty, he also is used to represent the lower
At first glance, The Great Gatsby is merely a classic American tragedy, portraying the story of a man's obsession with a fantasy, and his resulting downfall. However, Fitzgerald seems to weave much more than that into the intricate web of emotional interactions he creates for the reader. One interesting element is the concepts of greatness each has. For Daisy, it lies in material wealth, and in the comfort and security associated with it. Daisy seems to be easily impressed by material success, as when she is touring Gatsby's mansion and seems deeply moved by his collection of fine, tailored shirts. It would seem that Tom's relative wealth, also, had at one time impressed her enough to win her in marriage. In contrast to that, Gatsby seems to not care a bit about money itself, but rather only about the possibility that it can win over Daisy. In fact, Gatsby's extreme generosity gives the reader the impression that Gatsby would otherwise have never even worked at attaining wealth had it not been for Daisy. For Gatsby, the only thing of real importance was his pursuit of Daisy. It would seem that these elements are combined, too in the character Myrtle.
The Great Gatsby is Not The novel has no plot to mention. . The book is sensational, loud, blatant, ugly, pointless. There seems to be no reason for its existence: Harvey Eagleton (Dallas Morning News, May 10, 1925). F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an absurd story, whether considered a romance, melodrama, or plain record of New York high life.
Myrtle is married to a mechanic, but is sleeping with Tom. Fitzgerald's novel seems to affirm the Biblical adage that the love of money is the root of all evil, for his characters value money inordinately. And this attitude is a central moral concern in the novel. Fitzgerald's characters erroneously believe money can buy them love, friends, and happiness. Gatsby tries to buy Daisy's love throughout the book.
Trinity Bell Gamache English 11 April 29th, 2024 Unbiological Twins In the stories both Macbeth and The Crucible there are two characters who are similar. They are Abigail and Lady Macbeth! They both are very manipulative, both for their ambition, and lastly the consequences they both take from their actions. Both of these characters from each story desire the feeling of power and are willing to do whatever it takes for them to be able to have this power.
Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.
Therefore, Fitzgerald presents the affair between Tom and Myrtle as one of desire – Tom desires to seek the “dramatic turbulence of an irrecoverable football game” (CH. 1. Myrtle strives to achieve the American Dream. The carelessness of their affair is highlighted in Myrtle’s material desires – the purchase of the dog with no thought whatsoever reveals how Myrtle wishes to appear reckless and abundant, just like women of the upper classes i.e. Daisy Buchanan. Myrtle Wilson believes she can obtain the American Dream through marrying Tom Buchanan, similar to Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. Catherine says, “Tom’s the first sweetie she ever had”.