Gatsby’s love, Daisy, is trapped in a world of materialism due to the highly materialistic society of 1920’s America. This money-minded society is a result of the abundance of wealth due to the economic boom after WWI, the rapid wealth creation from bootlegging due to prohibition, and the extravagant and unrestrained lifestyles of wealthy New York. The character Daisy Buchanan represents this materialistic society, and thus her love is centred on materialism. “It makes me so sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful clothes before” By pairing “beautiful shirts” and “sad”, Daisy ironically exposes her mistake in marrying Tom instead of Gatsby. This expresses her highly materialistic and thus conditional love for Gatsby.…
Once Gatsby’s dream of Daisy fades away –similar to the iconic representation of the fading green light on the dock- so does the “driving forth” of Gatsby’s money. His dream of her disintegrates, much like the American Dream that was prominent in the 1920s. Thus, Fitzgerald portrays that not only Gatsby is guilty of this thirst for wealth, whether it have a purpose or not. Many Americans in this time period were subordinates of the sins of avarice and prodigality.…
The massive economic prosperity of the 1920s led to an increase in materialism as households bought appliances and cars. Corruption in the financial sector had existed for a long time due to entrepreneurs like Rockefeller and their practices to stifle competition. Gatsby’s fixation on Daisy also reflects a need and struggle to find a purpose in…
Morality of Jay Gatsby Unravelling the realities of the Jazz age, the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the limitless measures taken by Jay Gatsby to rekindle the dormant love between him and the archetype 1920’s golden girl Daisy Buchanan. The romantic tragedy, The Great Gatsby, delves into the lavish customs of the Roaring Twenties, while strategically exposing the lack of sound ethics and moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory on Moral Development compartmentalizes Jay Gatsby, a bombastic personality, as the least ethical persona of this specific 1920’s setting which centers around East Egg, West Egg and the Valley of Ashes. Living the 1920’s American grandiloquent lifestyle of the wealthy, Jay Gatsby’s motives, behind life decisions, consist largely of an adamant determination to gain peer appreciation, to gain the utmost reward for devoting his life to her, and to gain her love by sacrificing his reputation for hers Playing a crucial role in Gatsby’s rationale, Daisy Buchanan’s approval magnetizes Gatsby to…
In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, society has a fixation with the famous and wealthy; this fixation also seems to hold true in real life. The events of Gatsby’s life, such as his busy parties versus the number of people at his funeral, his impartial relationships, and the gossip about his past versus the truth about his start to wealth, convey a different message. Gatsby’s abundant materialistic fortune alternative to his meaningless life, and his driven want of an empty dream leads one to believe Gatsby’s life is not genuinely what it seems to be. Gatsby comes to show that in reality, distinguished people often do not have the ideal life that is perceived, but rather a lonely, hollow life with a facade. One of the first…
The eyes of T. J. Eckleburg loom high above the “valley of ashes,” observing the lives and lies of those around him (Fitzgerald 23). In the absence of God in the “ashes” (23), Eckleburg rises up to take His place as the new moral authority; however, his morals are not based solely upon religion and faith, but rather the booming capitalist economy (Bracken 1). F. Scott Fitzgerald carefully and purposefully wove the ascension of the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg into The Great Gatsby, forcing the characters to feel the weight of Eckleburg’s gaze in their lives. Had Fitzgerald abstained from emphasizing the significance of the eyes, both the characters and the readers would not have realized the mounting supremacy of the billboard. Only being an oculist’s billboard, the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg did not seek idolization.…
Destruction Fee As Jay Gatsby attempts to win over his golden girl, he is oblivious to the fact that he is hurting himself and the people he cares about along the way. Not only is Gatsby blind to not see the incongruity of his goal, but he fails to realize that the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan, has other aspirations for her ideal life that Gatsby will never be able to fulfill. Much like the way Gatsby thinks and acts, Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson struggle to be mollified with what they already have. These naïve hopes of a textbook life cause all of the key characters in The Great Gatsby to cause hurt and destruction.…
Innocence Lost In the early 1900’s, in the aftermath of WWI, New York City was the liveliest place in America. Wall Street 's booming opportunity is everywhere; people are looking for the good life. This world is captured perfectly in F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby”. Jay Gatsby is a man of good will who is caught up in the world around him.…
Gatsby’s blindness to reality can be further attributed to Daisy’s metaphorical gleaming and her overwhelmingly material lifestyle. When Gatsby is recalling the first time he met Daisy, the author's use of visual imagery shows how Gatsby was blinded by Daisy’s radiance and material wealth. Gatsby saw, “...Daisy, gleaming like silver…”(150) and kissed her, “...shining hair…’(150). By comparing Daisy to a gleaming piece of silver, Fitzgerald illustrates Gatsby’s partially blinded view of Daisy. He thought he saw her as a love interest, but instead, he subconsciously saw her as a commodity, a glittering investment.…
In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates Jay Gatsby’s perpetual optimism through his struggle to balance his ideals with the reality of the world around him. This optimism presents itself in three aspects crucial to the development of his character in the novel, Gatsby’s delusion, his burgeoning ammorality, and his irrational love for Daisy. Firstly, Jay Gatsby’s continuous attempts to balance his ideology with his actuality cause him to become deluded. During the beginning of the novel before the Nick has actually met him, he’s told many wild and extraordinary rumors about Gatsby, such as the one he hears from Myrtle Wilson’s sister Charlotte.…
Gatsby pretended to be someone that he was not when he first met Daisy. He seduced the girl whose happiness solely depends on money and property. It was successful that night, which directs us towards the roles of women during this time, because Fitzgerald uses women to build the American Dream by focusing on their beauty and status. He thoroughly examines the objectification of women. “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth…”…
Despite evidence of Daisy’s shallowness, Gatsby’s unrealistic desire to restore the past ultimately blinds him to the reality of his destructive relationship, as his infatuated pursuit of Daisy consumes his identity. In an effort to assimilate into the aristocratic class, Gatsby reinvents his identity under the illusions of pre-established wealth, despite his actual humble upbringing. His pursuit of Daisy ultimately resulted in his own downfall, as she fails to take responsibility for her automobile accident that evoked Myrtle’s death. Gatsby’s innocent and inevitable death ultimately highlights the unattainability and corruption of the supposed American Dream. Gatsby’s infatuated pursuit of Daisy ultimately unveils his preexistent figurative blindness, thus his inevitable death illustrates the corruption underlying the American…
Still, The Great Gatsby contradicts Adam’s statement since Jay Gatsby dedicates himself to accumulate a fortune in order to win the love of Daisy (Fay) Buchanan and acceptance of the aristocracy. F. Scott Fitzgerald guides Gatsby on the correct path to achieve his American Dream, but his dream slowly becomes distorted by the influence of society’s focus on materialism; this new way of life for Jay Gatsby does not win the approval and acceptance of the East Egg elite, and more importantly Daisy’s heart. It is also evident that many misinterpret the American Dream as an objective of accumulating of wealth throughout the development of the novel. In effect, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby reveals the corruption of the American Dream during the nineteenth twenties by surfacing the issues of unrestrained and unprecedented hedonism, as well as materialism; the devoid sense morals and ethics present in society; and the America’s obsession with…
The society during the “Roaring Twenties” was one focused on extravagance. The society’s members during this time yearned towards an Ethiopian ideal through their pursuit of both prosperity (wealth) and success (happiness). Gatsby’s attempt to achieve this ideal mirrors the expected behavior associated with achieving this “American Dream.” Since Gatsby was not born wealthy, the journey towards his immense wealth gave hope to those near the bottom of the social ladder for self-improvement. However, Gatsby’s sole purpose of this prosperity achievement was to win Daisy’s love.…
Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, varying characters experience a multitude of events in attempt to achieve their strenuous goal of accomplishing the American Dream in the 1920s. The pursuits of wealth and happiness, principles of the American Dream, are incredibly profound and significant within The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel criticizes the wealthy class, as well as first elaborates on how to differentiate between the two prominent affluent groups, consisting of those born into wealth and those who acquired their wealth that frequently clash with each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby contrasts the polar opposite lifestyles and aesthetics of East Egg and West Egg, displaying the fast- paced ephemera of East Egg, and “West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them” (Fitzgerald 6). The copious amounts of trials and tribulations regarding trivial materialistic wants the protagonists and deuteragonists face in The Great Gatsby end in their deaths as well as detrimental scarring…