F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: Gatsby worships materialism

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. The wild lavishness of Gatsby's parties and the shallowness and purposelessness of the lives of the guests all kills Gatsby on the inside. All Gatsby wants when he chooses to be rich is to get Daisy. Daisy, who is wealthy and beautiful, symbolizes a way of life which is remote from Gatsby's and therefore more attractive because it is out of reach so he changes himself. (Fitzgerald, -page 54) Myrtle and Gatsby both want to be part of the same elite crowd. They play a reflection of each other in the book by wanting the same thing but they have different methods of achieving it. Gatsby wants Daisy, and Myrtle just wants to be higher in society. Gatsby plays the god-like character in this book so his means are good but both him and Myrtle do bad things to get higher in a crowd that will never take them in. To make themselves appear better to the other crowd, they lose some of the moral fiber that was there to begin with. (Fitzgerald, -page 83) Loss of morals in the 1920' in America caused the American dream to vanish. The god-like character of the book was a good person but he did bad things like bootlegging and joining in organized crime. Affairs happened in the elite crowd between Tom and Myrtle. Dishonesty reared its ugly head when Daisy killed Myrtle by running her over then blaming it on Gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
727 Words | 2 Pages
Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill.
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Sympathy For Myrtle's Death In The Great Gatsby
686 Words | 2 Pages
The Great Gatsby displays how the time of the 1920s brought people to believe that wealth and material goods were the most important things in life, and that separation of the social classes was a necessary need. Fitzgerald’s choice to expose the 1920s for the corrupt time that it really was is what makes him one of the greatest authors of his time, and has people still reading one of his greatest novels, The Great Gatsby, decades
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Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as Commentary on the Failure of Society
718 Words | 2 Pages
"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story," was said of Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is about the American Society at its worst and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goals. The idea is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness. To get his happiness Jay Gatsby must reach into the past and relive an old dream. In order to achieve his dream, he must have wealth and power. Fitzgerald was wrong in the way he presented Gatsby's American Society because of the way Gatsby made money, found love, and lived his life.
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F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
1667 Words | 4 Pages
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald analyzes three main characters, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby is a story about finding out who people really are and how far they will go to protect their secrets from spilling to everyone. The Great Gatsby is like a story of our time, we have the rich and the poor towns, we have people who cheat on their spouses, and lastly, we have racism towards different cultures and races (Schreier). Many ironic events take place throughout the book. For example, Gatsby and Nick become friends, Tom and Myrtle being secret lovers, also, Daisy and Gatsby carrying on an affair, and lastly Daisy running over Myrtle in Gatsby’s car (Coleman). Fitzgerald purposely wrote the book to tell about lovers that were not supposed to be together and how they overcame that and fell in love with one another (Shain). He also wrote the book to relate to American society (Tolmatchoff).
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
1434 Words | 3 Pages
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby in order to display the wretchedness of upper-class society in the United States. The time period, the 1920s, was an age of new opulence and wealth for many Americans. As there is an abundance of wealth today, there are many parallels between the behavior of the wealthy in the novel and the behavior of today’s rich. Fitzgerald displays the moral emptiness and lack of personal ethics and responsibility that is evident today throughout the book. He also examines the interactions between social classes and the supposed noblesse oblige of the upper class. The idea of the American dream and the prevalence of materialism are also scrutinized. All of these social issues spoken about in The Great Gatsby are relevant in modern society. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this novel as an indictment of a corrupt American culture that is still present today.
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What Is Symbolism In The Great Gatsby
970 Words | 2 Pages
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 20th century American novelist, once said, “You don 't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald wrote to address the materialistic nature of the Roaring Twenties and the unattainability of the American Dream. The Great Gatsby, is, on the surface, about lavish events, parties, and objects. Jay Gatsby, a prime example of this theme, constantly throws extravagant parties and possesses expensive materials in a shallow attempt to win back his golden girl, Daisy. As the book progresses, Gatsby’s intentions for winning Daisy back become apparent and the symbolic nature of the book unfolds. F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the superficial goals of the
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The Role Of Myrtle In The Great Gatsby
452 Words | 1 Pages
In chapter seven, Myrtle had “her life violently extinguished” by Daisy and Gatsby, who had hit her with their car (Fitzgerald 145). Myrtle thought it was Tom in the car, but the “yellow car” he was driving earlier wasn’t his (Fitzgerald 148). This is significant because George, who seems to be the most honest and hardworking character, has lost it all because of Tom’s affair. This supports how The Great Gatsby is criticizing the social structure of the 1920s because the rich are stepping on the poor, and the poor are working hard with little or no reward.
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The Results of Keeping Secrets in the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
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...are shown that Gatsby is prepared to do everything in his power to acquire Daisy’s adoration again, even let her get away with murder and will blindly go to jail for her. This however only leads him to his ultimate doom, as he is killed by Myrtle’s husband, Wilson. He may be a liar, but readers empathize with him as his only fault for being dishonest is his love for Daisy and being so blind to see that she is not worthy of that adoration.
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Why Is Tom Important In The Great Gatsby
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Gatsby contrives a strategy for all of them to meet at lunch. During this lunch Daisy is to confess her love for Gatsby, and tell Tom that she never loved him. Tom gets word of the plot and suggests that they go out into the city instead. The three make the trip to the city, but after a while they decide to leave. Daisy drives Gatsby’s yellow car and Tom drives the other one. On the way back home, Myrtle see’s the yellow car and jumps into the street. Since Daisy is driving recklessly, she has no time to stop the car and ends up hitting Myrtle. Tom is enraged when he finds out Myrtle was killed. He thinks Gatsby is the one who slayed her. So when Tom sees Gatsby face to face again he shoots and kills
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Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Raisin In The Sun
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Fitzgerald stereotypes the women as he criticizes them by portraying negative outcomes for women’s actions; however, he failed to portray similarly for the male characters. For instance, Myrtle’s brutal death can be analyzed and connected back as a result of her actions of immorality and cheating on her husband. Furthermore, Fitzgerald reveals that it was frequent for men to be disloyal to their wives, especially when Tom proudly advertises his affair with Myrtle and introduces her to Nick. In case of Tom, he also vindicates his physical strength over women to overpower them. The storyline encourages patriarchal society as is depicted in various parties of Gatsby’s where “men [were] pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles… and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the traps for a moment” (Fitzgerald 51). The women who are used to entertain men at the party demonstrate the ease with which these women can be obtained. The overall portrayal of women in the novel shows their insignificance in the
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Lies and Deciet in The Great Gatsby
1131 Words | 3 Pages
Gatsby, Myrtle and Tom lie to themselves and others through their words and actions. Gatsby and Myrtle attempt to be social climbers; Gatsby loves the idea of Daisy and Myrtle loves the idea of Tom and what he can provide for her. They both try to appear as someone they are not: Gatsby tries to appear as a successful man who comes from a wealthy family while Myrtle longs to appear as an upper class woman. Their lies have tragic results since Myrtle, Gatsby and Mr. Wilson all die needlessly. However, Tom, who seems to be successful, lies because he is selfish and thinks only about fulfilling his personal needs. Clearly, The Great Gatsby demonstrates that deceiving others, for any reason, inevitably leads to tragedy for the individual and others who touch their lives.
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Daisy’s Corruption of the American Dream
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Daisy's carelessness reveals her corruption as a human being. She uses her wealth and social status to escape whatever she chooses, like the death of Myrtle. Additionally, her actions demonstrate the dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain and attention. Daisy’s character, due to her money, inherently values her advantage over the lower class, revealing a nature of entitlement. Additionally, she gives no respect to anyone around her, sometimes n...
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
880 Words | 2 Pages
The Roaring Twenties, a time that embodies the essence of the American Dream, is the setting behind the Great Gatsby; it was a time when self-indulgence overshadowed the moral compass of society. In Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald exemplifies this attitude of society through the observations of his narrator, Nick Carraway, who serves as the moral compass throughout the book. Nick, a young man inclined to reserve judgment, from Minnesota goes to New York City to learn the bond business. He moves in to a small house in West Egg where he observes multiple issues between opposing characters, which causes him to morally change and ethically grow. According to Fraser, the technique of counterpoint is used as a major technical device by Fitzgerald to construct instances where Nick is put in a situation out of his comfort zone. Nick is forced to change as a character to understand and analyze the situations he observes and experiences. Nick is morally changed and ethically defined in a positive way because of his observations of the contrasts between characters, setting and plot.
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Examples Of Patriarchy In The Great Gatsby
2313 Words | 5 Pages
Many people would go to Gatsby’s parties to have a good time, and this is where the cheating would take place because people were under the influence and wanted to live life to the fullest; even though this isn’t the right way to do it. After Gatsby’s party many people were fighting because their significant other had found out about what they had done at the party, or what they were doing. Wilson and Myrtle’s marriage started to fail once Wilson found out that Myrtle was cheating on him with Tom Buchanan. “Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York.”(Fitzgerald 26) This is said by Tom and it shows the readers that when the spouses were cheating they were very sneaky about what they were doing. Tom and Daisy are also another couple that both cheat on each other, throughout The Great Gatsby. Tom has been cheating on Daisy throughout their marriage with Myrtle, which is Wilson’s wife. Tom is very rude to Daisy during the beginning of this book, and doesn’t seem to show too much affection towards her. Daisy and Gatsby meetup again, and try to rekindle their love that they used to have before he went to war. “Gatsby doesn’t want her to know. You’re just supposed to invite her over for tea” (Fitzgerald 79). Gatsby was afraid of being denied, so he wouldn’t bluntly ask Daisy to meetup with him again. Daisy cheated on Tom because even though, as we were told, she and Gatsby weren’t sleeping together, though some could inquire they were, it is still cheating because she is married to Tom. Tom and Myrtle also have something going on. This is causing Myrtle to cheat on her husband when he husband has done nothing wrong, and has stayed loyal to Myrtle. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald shows how marriages started to decline because of how reckless people were living, and how they always had the “I don’t care”
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The Importance Of Love
726 Words | 2 Pages
...winning Daisy over. Her voice contains the promise of vast riches. However, Gatsby is too late to realize that money is the only thing her voice promises. There is no compassion in Daisy, just as there is none in cold, hard cash. Gatsby’s lapse in judgment is in not realizing that Daisy represents both material success and the corruption that wealth can bring. Although she appears to be full of sweetness and light, she is at heart self-centered and cold. Daisy is careless with people’s lives; she lets Gatsby take the blame for her unintentional manslaughter of Myrtle Wilson. Her careless actions eventually result in Gatsby’s death, of which she shows no
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby