The Great Gatsby Tragedy From Lies Essay

, Research Paper

The Great Gatsby: Tragedy From Lies

In the world people try to hide things from each other but one way or

another they find out what they are hiding. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott

Fitzgerald, the secrecy and deceit practiced by Jay, Daisy, and Myrtle leads to

inevitable tragedy when the truths are revealed.

Jay failed to realize that if you tell a lie most of the time they

tend to come to a boil and burst. For example, “My family have been prominent,

well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations.”….pg.2

why did he have to lie when he knew that if they really got to know him they

would find out the truth. Jay gave everyone the impression that he was this kind

of rich-snobbish guy. Who knows why. It is not always good to lie. In Jay’s case

when it came down to them finding out the truth they didn’t know whether he was

telling the truth or lying. So it was hard for them to believe what he was

saying.

Daisy was another who would lie because she thought it would keep

happiness. The way she lied was different from Jay. She lied to keep the person

she thought was the love of her life, Tom happy. Daisy’s relationship with TOm

was quite unusual. Tom was having an affair with Myrtle and Daisy really wanted

to be with Tom, but not really because she only did it because she thought she

had to. Daisy was really in love with Jay but because she felt like she had to

be in love with Tom she would make up lies to keep them together. Tom pretty

much felt the same way or he thought Daisy really liked him so he didn’t want to

break her heart. But for them it didn’t really work out well. If they would of

told each other their feelings and wouldn’t of held them back from each other

they could of discussed their personnal situations and they might of had a nice

seperation. But since they chose to keep things back from each other and lie to

each other everything went terrible. For instance when the story about Jay and

Daisy was coming out she still wanted to keep it a secret so she said “Please

let’s all go home. Why don’t we all go home?”…pg.131 it was coming out but she

was still trying to keep things back from Tom. What Daisy failed to understand

was the lying was not helping at this point at all. In this conversation Daisy

continued lying saying “Why- how could I love him-possibly?”….pg. 132 when she

knew she loved him.

The largest of all lies was the Myrtle and Tom affair because everyone

in the story seemed to evolved around this issue. Alot of people didn’t really

catch what was going on. Until Mr. Wilson found out, Myrtle’s husband. He loved

her alot and he did not want to let her go so he locked her in the closet and

said “She’s going to stay there till the day after to-morrow, and then we’re

going to move away.” ….pg.137 this is the kind of punishment she recieved

after she lied but he wasn’t going to let her go. He was going to keep her

locked up until he got ready to move because she always talked about moving.

Otherwise she was going to try to run away with Tom. In the meantime Mrs. Wilson

(Myrtle) is screaming through the closet “Beat Me!”….pg. 138 as if he was the

one in the wrong not her.

In conclusion none of these lies were kept going for along time. Jay

eventually told the truth and got together with Daisy. Myrtle was ran over by

Gatsby’s car and Mr. Wilson commited suicide. But lies always tend to collapse.

The secrecy and deceit that was practiced by all of these individuals all

collapsed and the truth was revealed