The Great Gatsby

‘‘A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.’’ Said by Thomas Paine the man who wrote common sense during the American Revolution. His words apply to this story in a variety of ways, the key idea being that almost everyone in the great Gatsby is living somewhat of a lie and sacrificing there own happiness to protect their social standard, and oddly enough none of them seem to be effected by the artificiality that surrounds the people around them and themselves. They are perfectly content with the fact that no one in their lives is truly genuine, but are dishonest, hollow shells that take on the image of human beings. Most of the people eventually become so blind of it, not even realizing how artificial their lives are.

Even though Daisy is completely and fully aware of her husband tom’s involvement with his mistress myrtle and he is of her affections towards Gatsby, neither of the two will file for divorce. This is due to the fact that both are completely shallow people. When Tom has nick over at his apartment with myrtle and some other guests, Catherine leans over to nick and goes on about how Tom and myrtle should leave the people they are married to and run off together to get married as soon as possible. On page 33 chapter 2 Catherine then says to nick about Daisy ‘’you see its really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s catholic and they don’t believe in divorce.’’ Nick then thought to himself that ‘’ daisy was not a catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie’’ this conversation just goes to show that Daisy and Tom aren’t the thriving 1920s couple that they are trying to fool everyone into thinking they are, but are instead adulterous. Clearly ...

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... had thrown all of those glamorous parties in the summer it meant nothing after he died. At the beginning of the book nick says ‘’ sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all’’. The very depressing and even ironic thing about Jay Gatsby was that even though hundreds of faces where in his house at once, he was still alone. He had seldom friends and even fewer people who knew who he truly was. All that time he let his life become consumed by the materialistic show he put on for daisy, a women who really only cared for herself. He too was becoming a superficial snob like those around him. After his death a Meer three guest showed up to his funeral, proving that Mr. Jay Gatsby the man with everything truly had nothing. The man who chased a dream that was never reached.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004.