The Great Gatsby Moral Essay

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Thesis Statement: I believe that wealth does not immediately define the morals and sins of those who are possession of it, due to many lower class characters partaking in immoral acts, morals being shaped by upbringing, not bank, and that lower class citizens have a wealthy and greedy mindset, but are, in fact, not wealthy themselves.

Subclaim 1: In The Great Gatsby, a majority of the characters portrayed as being part of the lower class are shown to be just as immoral as those who were born into wealth.

Evidence 1: “I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there.”(Fitzgerald 45).
Some guests were not part of the upper class, yet they were just as immoral as the wealthy - showing up to a
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Although Wilson was a poor mechanic, he did the morally unjust act of homicide and suicide(Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell). In other words, Gatsbys frivolously “great” world is crumbling down. His hopes and dreams are burning away as the life flows out of him. Wilson’s dying wish is to end the life of the man who “killed” his wife. His life has been burning since Myrtles death, he is extinguishing his pain with a shot to the head. The poor, and the once poor are shown to be the only ones paying for the wealthy and their own sins. Gatsby took the blame for Myrtle’s death, while Daisy left with her husband, not caring about Gatsby, and not receiving punishment. This is how the world works to this very …show more content…
and for the characters whose pasts we know about we can tell they have not changed.

Evidence 2: “It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour”(Fitzgerald 98).
Gatsby knew at a young age who he wanted to be. He was a rich man in a poor boy’s world. At a young age, Gatsby knew who he wanted to be, and had the right morals though they were not necessarily good allowed him to become one of the 1%.
Evidence 3: “‘I raised him out of nothing, right out of the gutter. I saw right away he was fine-appearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I could use him good. I got him to join up in the American Legion and he used to stand high there. Right off he did some work for a client of mine up to Albany. We were so thick like that in everything’-he held up two bulbous fingers-’always together’”(Fitzgerald

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