Negative Ideology The Great Gatsby was a story which addressed many human flaws that many people saw no problem with. F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of the story, used the story of Jay Gatsby to show how many of these flaws can negatively affect us in a huge way. Some of these negative traits included concepts such as: the idea that money equals happiness; the belief that we control our own fates; and that people always want more than what they have. These may seem normal and some people also may even say positive concepts. But as shown in The Great Gatsby, they can be dangerous and even deadly. First, money doesn’t equal happiness. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in The Great Gatsby. Before Nick visits Tom and Daisy in their new home …show more content…
in East Egg he says, "They spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together" (6). This showed the mindset of Daisy and Tom. They had so much money but they were bored with everything they did so they tried to chase entertainment wherever possible. Also, in an excerpt from the book "Rethinking the American Dream" by David Kamp, Kamp stated, "U.S.
citizens averaged 12.3 years of education, tops in the world and a length of time in school once reserved solely for the upper class. Yet academic studies by political scientists and mental-health detected a marked uptick since the midcentury in the number of Americans who considered themselves …show more content…
unhappy." This shows how, even though people are receiving full educations and making decent money, they aren't happy. This fact is shown time and time again in society and in The Great Gatsby. Characters such as Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby don’t find very much satisfaction in their wealth. Daisy couldn't decide if she wanted Tom for his steady wealth or Gatsby and his mysterious explosion of wealth; Tom wasn't content with his money and wife and he went found himself a mistress to attempt to please himself; and Gatsby accumulated a large amount of wealth and was struggling to find happiness without Daisy. Also, we as people don’t have control over our fate.
This is shown in The Great Gatsby when Nick says, “To-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning—” (180). Nick says this when speaking about how we try to bring back the past. But we can’t, as seen through Gatsby’s attempt of reviving Daisy and his love for one another like it was years prior to the story. Gatsby ends up died and Daisy leaves with Tom and doesn’t even bother to attend Gatsby’s funeral. In a comic strip by Ed Stein a man is talking to his children and he says, “In America, you can grow up to be anything you want. And this time it’s true!” The American Dream is a very popular belief in America that anyone who puts in hard work can become rich or have success. But as shown in history it isn’t always this way. There are people who work very hard and they still struggle to find success in our society. Some people are born into privileged families, like Tom and Daisy, where they don’t have to work for anything they are given. Some are born into extremely poor families and they aren’t given any opportunities to thrive like some are
given. Last of all, people always want more than what they have. This is a very prominent theme in The Great Gatsby with characters like Gatsby and Tom. In the book, it says, “’Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” (110). Gatsby already had built up his riches, but he couldn’t move on from his love of Daisy and he was determined to have both when he couldn’t. Nick also said this about Tom, “…I felt Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game” (6). Tom had a large amount of money but he found all his joy in his years of playing football. He was so determined to find something that would match the exhilaration he felt when playing the game. But, he never could quite find anything comparable to his thrill of football. In the book Self-Made Man – No Such Thing by Mike Myatt he says, “…you can either view yourself as part of a hierarchical world sitting a the top puffing your chest and propping-up your ego, or you can view yourself as the hub at the center of a large and diverse network. The latter is both more profitable and enjoyable than the former. You either choose to build your career at the expense of others, or by helping others…” Some people don’t seem to realize that everything isn’t meant to be just about you. If you look to reach out or help others it can really end up benefitting you in the long run. You just need to be smart and do things that can make others happy and that will add to your happiness rather than focusing on yourself and hoping you progress and stay happy. I truly believe F. Scott Fitzgerald tried and succeeded in applying many themes that we face today in society in The Great Gatsby. We all have our struggles and Fitzgerald managed find many human flaws that can cause the downfall of all of us. He did exaggerate many of the consequences of these flaws in the story but he also did address them as problems which many people saw no problem with. These human errors have caused many tragedies to occur in people’s lives without them even acknowledging the fact that the negative events in their lives are the product of their own mistakes and flaws. Daisy and Tom didn’t realize the impact that they had on many of the people who they touched. Nick was scarred with the experiences he had with the couple and he lost a friend in the process of their actions of Daisy killing Myrtle and Tom telling Watson that it was Gatsby who had killed her. Also, Gatsby enacted his fate upon himself by trying to go after Daisy even though he knew she was married and was not able to marry him. Gatsby managed to drag many people into his scheme and it eventually reached a boiling point. Which eventually caused his downfall and lead to the tragedy of the story which was the death of Gatsby.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him. Initially, Gatsby stirs up sympathetic feelings because of his obsession with wealth.
“Money can’t buy happiness” is a saying that is often used to make one understand that there is more to life than wealth and money. Jay Gatsby was a man of many qualities some of which are good and bad. Throughout the book of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we learn of his past and discover the true qualities of Jay Gatsby. Starting from the bottom, with little money, we learn of why Gatsby struggled so hard all his life to become wealthy and what his true goal in life was. When reading this story, the true reasons behind Gatsby’s illegal actions reveal themselves and readers can learn a great life lesson from this story and the actions the characters take. Readers can see through Gatsby’s contradictions of actions and thoughts that illustrate the theme of the story, along with his static characteristics, that all humans are complex beings and that humans cannot be defined as good or bad.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby many characters are not as they seem. The one character that intrigues me the most is James Gatsby. In the story Gatsby is always thought of as rich, confident, and very popular. However, when I paint a picture of him in my mind I see someone very different. In fact, I see the opposite of what everyone portrays him to be. I see someone who has very little confidence and who tries to fit in the best he can. There are several scenes in which this observation is very obvious to me. It is clear that Gatsby is not the man that everyone claims he is.
The Great Gatsby is a well written and exemplary novel of the Jazz age, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald desired writing his books about the roaring twenties and would explain what happened during that time frame. The majority of the characters in The Great Gatsby cared more about money, power, and having a good time then the people in their lives. This lack of caring for others resulted in the hardships the characters faced. Especially, Jay Gatsby was one of these cruel characters.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s visionary writing style during the early twentieth century revolutionized a new style for other writers. “Theme is most dramatically expressed through character, and Fitzgerald used the people he created to convey his personal vision of the world” (Keshmiri 2). As Keshmiri states, Fitzgerald, unlike many other writers at the time, expresses his stories through the development of the characters. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and the Damned illustrate the many flaws of human nature and how these flaws contribute to the downfall of the characters through their obsession with status, their inability to accept reality, and the use of alcohol.
Everyone in the world is different. People have come to acknowledge the variety of differences that comes to surround one today. Differences do not always mean race or religion, but rather the individual characteristics that make up one specific person. Everyone has characteristics of themselves that are either the best or the worst. The good traits are usually concealed and hidden because people mainly focus on the negative sides of people. Conversely, the worst trait is more visible and apparent to the eye. In literature, the same applies, but the bad trait leads to larger ramifications for a character and others around them. In F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the recurring trait of recklessness is found throughout the classy and lavish denizens of
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.
Does The Great Gatsby merit the praise that it has received for many decades? “Why I despise The Great Gatsby” is an essay by Kathryn Schulz at New York Magazine in which Schulz states that she has read it five times without obtaining any pleasure from it. Long viewed as Fitzgerald’s masterpiece and placed at or near the uppermost section of the English literary list, The Great Gatsby has been used as a teaching source in high schools and universities across the United States. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moved to Long Island, next door to an elegant mansion owned by a mysterious and affluent Jay Gatsby. The story follows Gatsby and Nick’s unusual friendship and Gatsby’s pursuit of a married woman named Daisy.
In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a tragic tale of love distorted by obsession. Finding himself in the city of New York, Jay Gatsby is a loyal and devoted man who is willing to cross oceans and build mansions for his one true love. His belief in realistic ideals and his perseverance greatly influence all the decisions he makes and ultimately direct the course of his life. Gatsby has made a total commitment to a dream, and he does not realize that his dream is hollow. Although his intentions are true, he sometimes has a crude way of getting his point across. When he makes his ideals heard, his actions are wasted on a thoughtless and shallow society. Jay Gatsby effectively embodies a romantic idealism that is sustained and destroyed by the intensity of his own dream. It is also Gatsby’s ideals that blind him to reality.
The American Dream never died, it never existed in the first place. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby, wealthy and mysterious, is neither a terrible person nor a saint he is simply human. But to choose whether he is truly great or not so great would be difficult because he has both qualities of good and bad. But eventually his fatal flaws will lead to destruction. Gatsby does bad things with good intentions, he is a criminal and a liar but all to achieve the American dream and pursue Daisy, the love of his life.
In the famous great American novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character Jay Gatsby is portrayed as a romantic hero, hopeful dreamer, and as someone who is completely unforgettable. What makes Gatsby so great was not his wealth, position in society or his personal belongings, but his determination to make something of himself during a time in which moral corruptions were common. Jay Gatsby’s personal greatness was exemplified in his struggle against his own fate, devoted love towards Daisy, and self sacrifice.
The novel, The Great Gatsby focuses on one of the focal characters, James Gatz, also known as Jay Gatsby. He grew up in North Dakota to a family of poor farm people and as he matured, eventually worked for a wealthy man named Dan Cody. As Gatsby is taken under Cody’s wing, he gains more than even he bargained for. He comes across a large sum of money, however ends up getting tricked out of ‘inheriting’ it. After these obstacles, he finds a new way to earn his money, even though it means bending the law to obtain it. Some people will go to a lot of trouble in order to achieve things at all costs. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, conveys the numerous traits of Jay Gatsby through the incidents he faces, how he voices himself and the alterations he undergoes through the progression of the novel. Gatsby possesses many traits that help him develop as a key character in the novel: ambitious, kind-hearted and deceitful all of which is proven through various incidents that arise in the novel.
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.
The moral decay of society during the 1920’s was represented through the characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. People became selfish as their wealth increased, and they didn’t care at all what they did to other people, as long as they ended up okay in the end. Dishonesty became accepted, and that led to a downfall of society. Because of the character’s lack of morals and responsibility, Gatsby, an innocent man, died.