Theme Of Secrets In The Great Gatsby

Everyone has secrets; everyone has something they want to keep unnoticed. As with every aspect of life, some secrets are meant to be kept private just as some secrets will inevitably be revealed. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are multiple characters whose lives are filled with concealed truths. Many of the characters, including the infamous Gatsby with his strained fantasies and the brute Tom with his distorted ideals, shroud their corruptions in cloaks of deceit and buried secrets. The characters of Fitzgerald’s classic novel all have secrets that they would rather remain unknown. Through the characters of The Great Gatsby, it is visible that the true meaning of a secret is something that is kept hidden from other people.

A secret is an actuality that is shielded from others; it is not a truth whose characteristics are openly shared. Subsequently, a secret’s owner will often go to lengths to keep their secrets hidden. In The Great Gatsby, this concept is prevalent in the character Jay Gatsby and the way he conceals his secrets in blankets of lies. One day, Gatsby suddenly invites Nick to lunch, and on the drive there, Gatsby tells Nick about his life, saying “ ‘I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West-all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years’ ” (Fitzgerald 65) . In this moment, Gatsby is spinning lies about his past in order to protect his secret that he was brought up penniless, and only recently came into wealth. Gatsby attempts to give Nick the impression that he has always been a wealthy, educated man of status, yet this impression is a smokescreen to hide Gatsby’s secret that he is truly only a farmer’s son. This truth of Gatsby’s origin is constantly being hidden by Gatsby himself, and he goes to great lengths in order to ensure that his secrets don’t become public. He keeps his true origins secret by circulating lies about being “the son of some wealthy people” and being “educated at Oxford” in order to better protect his own interests and not let others know his actual past. Not only does Gatsby lie in order to protect his secrets, but he assures that his lies can’t be traced with the statement that his family is “all dead now”. Though he does eventually reveal his secrets to Nick, at this point, Gatsby lies in order to conceal the truth. In essence, Gatsby’s secrets are just truths and facts that he keeps hidden from other