The Great Gatsby

953 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How social class is evident in the great gatsby

In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald offers up commentary on a variety of themes justice, power, greed, and betrayal, the American dream and so on. Each one of these themes is demonstrated through the relationships, which the characters have. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups, in which each character fits. By creating distinct social classes – old money, new money, and no money, Fitzgerald shows the differing in the way relationships turn out. This book offers a vivid peek of what life was like during the 1920’s. The first relationship introduced in the novel is Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Tom is a very powerful domineering man, very self-centered and self-absorbed. While Daisy is a charming, beautiful lady, with a thrilling voice, she is very self-centered as well. Tom and Daisy’s relationship is undergoing stress. When Daisy notices that her finger is hurt she says, “You did it, Tom… That’s what I get for marrying a brut of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen (Tom interrupts) “I hate that word hulking…even in kidding.” “Hulking,” insisted Daisy. (P 16) Daisy knows how to push all of Tom’s buttons and how hard to push them. Daisy tells Nick how cynical she is about everything, she shows her views in the statement “She told me it was a girl and I turned my head away and wept… all right I’m glad it’s girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (P 21). It’s rumored that Tom is having an affair, “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” (P 19), and from what Daisy says she would just rather not notice what is really happening. Daisy and Tom never seem at peace with each other, just in an oblivious state where nothing can change them. They know “their place” is together; it suits society, they are perfectly matched. Daisy goes astray with Gatsby. “As he (Tom) left the room again she got up and went over to Gatsby and pulling his face down, kissing him on the mouth…You know I love you.” (P 122-123) Daisy uses Gatsby to rebel against Tom’s infidelity, but would never even consider leaving him, especially for an old flame. They are so materialistic; they except their flawed relationship as normal. Myrtle and Tom have a very fiery relationship.

Show More
Related

  • the great gatsby

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jay Gatsby is a mysterious businessman from the nineteen twenties that is an ideal example of the American Dream. He falls in love with a young and vibrant woman by the name of Daisy Buchannan. Their admiration for each other enforces a luminous spark of determination upon themselves. This subsidizes their relationship under struggling circumstances, and changed their lives for the better. Daisy and Gatsby are the only two that truly prospered from their “American Dream” in this novel.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second character Fitzgerald analyzes is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is the definition of a dream girl, she is smart, gorgeous, and just an ideal woman to be around, and the relationship between her and Tom is quite odd (Baker). Daisy and Tom move to the fashionable East Egg from Chigaco (11). Daisy has everything a woman could wish for, a wealthy husband and an immaculate house. Daisy does not know that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Nick Carraway plays a major role in Daisy’s love life in The Great Gatsby. Nick is Daisy’s second cousin and he knew Tom from college (11). Daisy invites Nick over for dinner one evening and that is how she relearns about Jay Gatsby (11-17). Daisy met Gatsby at a dance in Louisville. They used to be madly in love with one another when he was in the army (). They had plans of always being together and being married in Louisville at Daisy’s home (118). Later in the story, Daisy was invited to go have tea at Nick’s house, but what she did not know is that it was all Gatsby’s idea to get them to rekindle their rel...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, various uses of symbolism and motifs appear throughout the story and provide insight into the deeper ideas of the book. The homes of the title character Jay Gatsby and major character Tom Buchanan are examples of this. The previous owner of Gatsby’s home was a brewery magnate, and the man who owned Tom’s house was an oil baron. The effects of wealth on the current owners of these two houses have characteristics similar to the fluids that the previous owners worked with. The way that Gatsby’s money affects him shares some qualities with alcohol, whereas the effects that Tom’s money has on him have several traits similar to those of oil. How Tom and Gatsby act due to their wealthy status assist in presenting one of the overarching themes of the work; despite how captivating it appears have wealth from a distance, and no matter what method is used to gain it, wealth has harmful effects on both the wealthy themselves and the people that they come in contact with.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    Symbolism is the use of giving objects a representative meaning or to represent something other than what it truly is. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby we meet Nick Carroway, the novel's narrator. The novel describes the life of Jay Gatsby when Nick meets him. Daisy, Nick's cousin, is married to Tom Buchanan but is the love interest of Gatsby. Tom, though he claims to love his wife, has a mistress Myrtle. Myrtle and her Husband George Wilson live in the valley of ashes. The novel analyzes the life of Americans, Jay Gatsby in particular, in the 1920's. Many of the items in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby represent something other than what it is.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1179 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates how people who seem to have wonderful lives because they are wealthy, can be selfish and poor in character. Those people lead to the decline of the American Dream for Gatsby. The 1920's was the age of prosperity on Long Island and that is why most people assumed that if you were rich and wealthy you had a good life. They also assumed that they had positive personalities. Fitzgerald proved them wrong. " One of the novel's dominant themes involves the decay of traditional American values in a suddenly prosperous society" (Howes). In fact, most of the characters in the novel were major factors to the fall of the American Dream. He exposes the greedy, conceited, and low people who live in it.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Books are the like the seasons of the year: the beginning of books are like winter, cold and boring, the middle is a combination between spring and winter, getting warmer, and then the end is like fall, a beautiful mess of colors and extravagant happenings. Similar to The Great Gatsby, each season is portrayed magnificently, but to be more specific, one particular character aids to the overall theme. Throughout The Great Gatsby, the lesson that when life throws you a curveball, you have to get up and keep swinging is exemplified through the entirety of the book, but demonstrated most by Jay Gatsby himself.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blankly stare.”

    Read More

  • The Rich and The Poor in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    587 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    580 Words  | 2 Pages

    this flashback, Jordan explains to Nick how she first met Gatsby. She explains to Nick

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    413 Words  | 1 Pages

    The relationship between Gatsby and Daisy is one of constant lies, and deceit. Gatsby falls in love with Daisy before he goes to the Army as a young man, and Daisy fell in love with him too. Yet Daisy is very materialistic and Tom, a very rich man came into place and Daisy married him instead of waiting for Gatsby like she had promised. Gatsby waited for Daisy but she did not wait for him, and instead married Tom just for his money. This shows how there relationship has been riddled with lies since the very beginning of the story.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Response

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen. ~Wayne Dyer

    Read More

  • Significance Of The Mafia In The Great Gatsby

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is an American novel of hope and longing, and is one of the very few novels in which “American history finds its figurative form (Churchwell 292).” Gatsby’s “greatness” involves his idealism and optimism for the world, making him a dreamer of sorts. Yet, although the foreground of Fitzgerald’s novel is packed with the sophisticated lives of the rich and the vibrant colors of the Jazz Age, the background consists of the Meyer Wolfsheims, the Rosy Rosenthals, the Al Capones, and others in the vicious hunt for money and the easy life. Both worlds share the universal desire for the right “business gonnegtion,” and where the two worlds meet at the borders, these “gonnegtions” are continually negotiated and followed (James E. Miller). Gatsby was a character meant to fall at the hands of the man meant to be a reality check to the disillusions of the era.

    Read More

  • East and West Egg in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many themes that are implemented in the Great Gatsby that Fitzgerald uses as a technique to juxtapose two contrasting topics. During this time of the Roaring Twenties, business and economy was booming, however there’s still was a underlying hint of urban corruption and the gap between the rich and poor became greater. Through the technique of juxtaposition, Fitzgerald paints a detailed picture of society in the 1920’s and its cultural clashes. By comparing the characters living in the East and West Egg, Fitzgerald highlights the contrast between morality and corruption in society during the 1920’s. Additionally, his contrasting descriptions of Tom and Daisy’s house to the Valley of Ashes offers a juxtaposition of the rich and poor.

    Read More

More about The Great Gatsby

Open Document