Betrayal In The Great Gatsby And Sula, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Humans are naturally imperfect beings, we lie, cheat, and steal from each other, and this is represented in three seminal works of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Specifically, these books deal with humans tendency to cheat and betray each other. This is exhibited in Tom’s betrayal of Daisy with Myrtle; Sula’s betrayal of Nel with Jude; and Hester’s betrayal of Chillingworth with Dimmesdale. In each of the novels, betrayal plays a central role in the story as well as the world at large within each of the novels. Without these instances of betrayal, the readers of each novel would have a much different understanding of the three main characters in

This betrayal cast an even larger shadow on Daisy’s life as a whole as her whole worldview became dark and cynical. This feeling of Daisy’s is eventually manifested in her affair with Gatsby which will actually eventually lead to his death. In Sula betrayal is the driving force behind most of the action and plot of the novel because as Nel and Sula’s loyalty to each other disintegrated so too did their positive outlook on the world. Finally, in The Scarlet Letter, the entire novel is based on Hester’s action of cheating on Chillingworth with Arthur Dimmesdale. Without this act of betrayal, there would be no novel and no ‘A’ on Hester’s chest. But, what's more, is that this original betrayal led to all of the other main characters committing more acts of betrayal on each other. This is evidenced by Dimmesdale refusing to come out as the father and thus forcing Hester to face her punishment alone as well as raise her child without its father. Each of the novel’s representation of betrayal sheds light on how the author of each novel views the world at

Beginning with The Great Gatsby it is fairly obvious to see that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beliefs on the world are extremely negative. This can be seen by his use of betrayal, specifically Tom’s betrayal of Daisy with Myrtle. This creates a sort of butterfly effect on the rest of the novel allowing other characters to feel emboldened and betray others especially Daisy. But all of this betrayal will end in sadness as it leads to the death of Gatsby and Mr. Wilson. This shows just how negative Fitzgerald’s worldview is, it shows that he believes that no matter much good there are in humans they will betray each other without fail and this will lead to pain for all those involved. Even Gatsby, who seems to have the purest love that you can have for a woman, will eventually be felled as a result of betrayal. All of this shows F. Scott Fitzgerald’s belief that humans are innately bad and will cheat on each other and because of this people’s lives will be ruined, as it was with Gatsby. Next, in Sula Toni Morrison shows that friendships are destined to be ruined by betrayal and betrayal will have far-reaching effects. In Sula, those far-reaching effects are the town’s rallying around the hatred of Sula thus bringing them together. But after her death the town falls apart. This shows that Toni Morrison believes that it is humans nature to betray one another and the only thing that