Theme Of Shame In The Great Gatsby

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The shame part of Gatsby is that he's a boy from a small town in North Dakota. During the middle of the novel we learn that Gatsby is ashamed of his lower-class upbringing. His parents were sort of shiftless farm workers and not very successful. 1“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”(Charles Dickens) And Gatsby is described as a self made man. From this shame, Jay Gatsby begins to create a persona. He changes his name, he leaves his house for the army, and creates a person of himself molded against his tragic persona of shame. However it is also important to see the emotions between shame versus guilt. Because of this, his own heart never heals completely from the past.

Guilt is a feeling people experience when they think they have done something wrong. They believe it is some kind of action, they have broken some kind of moral rule or law that might get them in trouble. Shame is more fundamental however. Its a feeling about yourself that something is wrong. And to understand Gatsby you...

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