The Great Gatsby
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was influenced by eastern society during the roaring 20’s. He portrays his knowledge of eastern morality in the novel The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby the corruptive effect of wealth is the cause of the most conflict regarding the morals of Nick Caraway and the morals of Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Jay Gatsby.
Daisy Buchanan has a very little moral value for herself and others. She is very careless. These low morals show throughout many parts in the story. For instance, her attitude toward Jay Gatsby – she doesn’t want him for what he is, but for the superficial illusion of what he is. The ultimate act of carelessness by Daisy, however, is the violent death of Myrtle. Daisy never thought twice about the night she hit Myrtle with the car, and never looked back. She never even bothered to tell Tom the truth that she was driving the car, not Gatsby. They move away before Gatsby is even dead.
Tom Buchanan is so much like Daisy, which is why they will never be separated from each other. Tom Buchanan’s outlook is much like Daisy’s, Tom cares only for himself. Tom believes that cheating on his wife is perfectly normal. This is a very prominent example of Tom Buchanan’s low Morals. Tom views Daisy as a possession rather than a person. Tom did not marry Daisy because he loved her. He married her for her beauty, as a prize, to show that he had the best of everything.
The low morals of Jordan Baker are what hurt Nick the most. Although Nick realizes he will never be with Jordan, he still has his hopes. He knows that Jordan’s “wealthy morals” will not allow this. Jordan can never be with Nick simply because she is rich and Nick doesn’t have money. Rich girls don’t marry poor boys.
Jay Gatsby’s actions conflict with his morals. Gatsby’s fortune did not come from “old money.” Most of his fortune was obtained trough illegal activities. This conflicts with how Jay portrays his morals. He portrays himself as being morally sound, but throughout the book Nick can sense the reality of Gatsby. Gatsby’s affair with Daisy also conflicts heavily with his moral values. He feels he is doing the right thing, but at the same time he feels guilty about what he is doing.
During Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it is apparent to be an absurd time for the wealthy. The shallowness of money, riches, and a place in a higher social class were probably the most important components in most lives at that period of time. This is expressed clearly by Fitzgerald, especially through his characters, which include Myrtle Wilson, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and of course, Jay Gatsby. This novel was obviously written to criticize and condemn the ethics of the rich.
On the other hand, Mr. Jay Gatsby has the best of intentions, but he fails at upholding a well-developed moral code. One of the main things that causes these moral deficiencies is the amount of wealth he has acquired. This wealth is said to be an example of the “social and moral disorder of the time” (Parkinson 104). His goal is to be happy and to have a beautiful life and he thinks to achieve...
Jay Gatsby was willing to alter his entire lifestyle to regain the love he once had with Daisy. “Gatsby has broken laws and done business with gangsters to get fabulously
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel based on Gatsby’s dream and hope. In order to enrich the story, symbols are used to emphasize what the author is saying and they create a curiosity in the reader as they are frequently used throughout the story. These three symbols – green light, valley of ashes and the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are not connected to each other but each of them represents important things in the story.
Jay Gatsby is a very wealthy man. Although he was born into a poorer family he worked hard and it paid off. He throws lavish parties for countless people, yet he has no real friends. He buys very expensive things and entertains large groups of society because of his desire for something greater. He is so blinded by his luxurious possessions that he does not see that money cannot buy love or happiness. Although Nick realizes that Gatsby is involved in secret business dealings and he is fixated on money, he is a good, loyal man at heart. Before Gatsby dies Nick says “They’re a rotten crowd.... You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (Fitzgerald 162).
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is about a man named Gatsby and his struggle to attain the American Dream in 1920’s Long Island. He fights to get his dream woman and to do so, he must first become rich. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really go about it the right way; he takes part in some illegal activities with some quite sinister characters, such as Meyer Wolfshiem. The corruption of Gatsby’s dream and his struggle to attain his dream are shown by F. Scott Fitzgerald through the use of symbolism, such as Gatsby’s car, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, and Gatsby stretching his arms out towards the green light across the bay.
The central theme is a comparison of the corrupting influence of wealth to the purity of a dream. Tom and Daisy Buchanan both lead purposeless lives that are filled with love. through corruption and wealth, while Gatsby lives his life striving towards his dreams. They all either have no purpose in life to begin with or lose all purpose and values due. the actions of another.
The act of betrayal is first seen when Tom Buchanan cheats on his wife, Daisy Buchanan with Myrtle, who also happens to be George Wilson’s wife. Tom’s actions are inexcusable as betrayal in a marriage is an extremely depraved course of action. Due to this betrayal, Daisy loses hope in their society. After realizing that the world is a very dangerous and bad place, she hopes that her daughter won’t see the world like her mother does. She desires her daughter to be naive and foolish so she can’t see the cruelty that lies within this society.
In famous novels throughout literature, characters often face conflicts between not themselves and other characters, but with time itself. In John Green's novel Looking For Alaska, the main characters confront the idea of "imagining the future as a kind of nostalgia". In this way, the main character Miles Halter, after the death of his friend Alaska, dreams of a future where he and Alaska are somehow reunited. However, the Alaska of his dreams is not as she presently exists, because she is no longer living. She is not even the Alaska that once existed, she is only Miles's own fantasy based on girl that he loves who was a part of his past. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby experiences the same type of longing for a return to his past in the future. In the pursuit of his dream, Gatsby faces reality as that which counterbalances his strong idealism as Nick Carraway observes it. In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby's failure to ultimately realize his dream is due to his belief in returning to his romantic past as an idealized conception of the future.
this flashback, Jordan explains to Nick how she first met Gatsby. She explains to Nick
In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, a novel set in The Roaring Twenties, portraying a flamboyant and immortal society of the ‘20s where the economy booms, and prohibition leads to organized crimes. Readers follow the journey about a young man named Jay Gatsby, an extravagant mysterious neighbor of the narrator, Nick Carraway. As the novel evolves, Nick narrates his discoveries of Gatsby’s past and his love for Daisy, Nick’s married cousin to readers. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald develops the theme of the conflict which results from keeping secrets instead of telling the truth using the three characters – Tom Buchanan, Nick Carraway, and Jay Gatsby (James Gats).
Throughout the novel, one of Tom 's biggest careless acts was when he cheated on Daisy. Tom is a cocky, confident man shown many times throughout the novel like when Nick arrived at his house and "Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch" (Fitzgerald 6). His stance showed his arrogance, and how highly he thought of himself because of his wealth. Tom was a man who often acted without thinking things through, like having an affair with Myrtle. Despite both Tom and Myrtle being married, they both had affairs. Tom doesn 't hide his affair from Nick and introduces him to his mistress Myrtle at Wilson 's garage. Tom doesn 't seem to care if anyone finds out because he feels as though nothing would change due to his wealth. While at Myrtle 's husbands garage, Tom tells Myrtle to meet him at the train station. They end up going to their apartment in New York City that they keep for their affair. While at the Morningside Height 's apartment Myrtle starts to talk about Tom 's wife Daisy, ""Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I 'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai-"" (Fitzgerald 37). Tom didn 't like Myrtle overstepping her boundaries and to show
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.
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.
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.