Causes of the Death of Gatsby

In the book, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character Jay Gatsby died towards the end of the book. Apart from the person that shot him (George Wilson), many of the major characters play a role fall in the fall of Gatsby. Characters like Daisy and Tom were also responsible for the death of Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Caraway also plays a part in the death of Gatsby. Gatsby, himself was a cause of his own death. Although George shot Gatsby without thinking or enquiring to know if he really killed his wife. Gatsby’s death was caused by a combination of Tom, Daisy and Nick Caraway. Daisy plays a part in Gatsby’s death for two reasons. Firstly, at the scene when Gatsby got angry at Tom, Daisy had every right to say who she really …show more content…
Tom made it seem like Gatsby was the one Myrtle was cheating on George with and he also lied that it was Gatsby that hit Myrtle even when he wasn’t sure. A quote taken from the book says “He didn’t even stop his car”(Fitzgerald 142). He assumed Gatsby was the one that hit Myrtle and made George believe the same. George listened to Tom and believed everything he said. He took in everything Tom had put into the air. Tom didn’t really like Gatsby and used the opportunity to blame everything on Gatsby. He also said some hateful things about him when he was in the car with Jordan Baker and Nick Caraway, he said these things knowing they won’t go against him because they feared him. Tom played with Gatsby emotions, he did things that egged Gatsby on and made him feel worthless. Tom had a way of getting into the characters’ emotions, he did the same for Nick and Daisy too. After he toyed with their emotions he made them believe untrue things and they always react in a negative way. In George’s case Tom made him believe that Gatsby hit Myrtle and he even made him believe that Gatsby had an affair with Myrtle too. Tom said so many lies that made George angry, he believed everything Tom said and went on to Gatsby’s house and killed …show more content…
One of which was his blind pursuit after daisy, he thought he could get back what he had lost five years ago. It was even ore difficult for him because she now had a husband. Gatsby went the extra mile to get Daisy. A quote from the book says: ”It was a strange coincidence," I said."But it wasn 't a coincidence at all.""Why not?"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.” (Nick, 4). Gatsby bought a very big house just so he could be closer to Daisy. It seemed like a coincidence at first but it was all for Daisy. If Gatsby let go of Daisy and not want a fairytale lifestyle, all the mis-haps could have been avoided. Gatsby was also at fault for his death because of what he was involved in. Gatsby was a bootlegger and neither of the characters knew. Gatsby sold alcohol illegally which made him have a bad image to the people that knew. People that knew him really well didn’t see him as a good person. He portrayed an entirely different personality to the public. Everyone knew he was rich but the way he discovered his riches made him exchange his morality for wealth. Gatsby exchanging his morality for wealth made him not see faults in many things he did. For example after Daisy hit Myrtle, Gatsby thought because he had a lot of money and power in the society, he could just make everything go away and he took the blame for what happened. If Gatsby wasn’t so rich, he wouldn’t think of taking the