Great Gatsby Essay, Research Paper
Characters in books can reveal the author feeling toward the world. In The
Great Gatsby Fitzgerald suggested the moral decline of the period in
America history through the interpersonal relationships among his
characters. The book indicates the worthlessness of materialism, the
futile quest of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America’s moral values had
diminished. Despite his newly acquired fortune, Gatsby’s monitory means
could not afford his only true wish, therefore he cannot buy everything
which is important to Daisy. (Fitzgerald, -page 42) What you wish for is
not always what you want or not all that glitters is gold. The wild
lavishness of Gatsby’s parties and the shallowness and purposelessness of
the lives of the guests all kills Gatsby on the inside. All Gatsby wants
when he chooses to be rich is to get Daisy. Daisy, who is wealthy and
beautiful, symbolizes a way of life which is remote from Gatsby’s and
therefore more attractive because it is out of reach so he changes
himself. (Fitzgerald, -page 54) Myrtle and Gatsby both want to be part of
the same elite crowd. They play a reflection of each other in the book by
wanting the same thing but they have different methods of achieving it.
Gatsby wants Daisy, and Myrtle just wants to be higher in society. Gatsby
plays the god-like character in this book so his means are good but both
him and Myrtle do bad things to get higher in a crowd that will never take
them in. To make themselves appear better to the other crowd, they lose
some of the moral fiber that was there to begin with. (Fitzgerald, -page
83) Loss of morals in the 1920′ in America caused the American dream to
vanish. The god-like character of the book was a good person but he did
bad things like bootlegging and joining in organized crime. Affairs
happened in the elite crowd between Tom and Myrtle. Dishonesty reared its
ugly head when Daisy killed Myrtle by running her over then blaming it on
Gatsby. This causes the deaths of three people. (Fitzgerald, -page 100)
In summary Gatsby struggle to gain acceptance among his social class and
failed. He could not achieve the American dream or reach his dream for his
true love. He changed him self into saying stuff like “old sport” and
other stuff to make him be into impure. The complicated struggle for class
distinction continued as his life was wasted. (Fitzgerald, -page 122)