Examples Of Tawdry In The Great Gatsby

Motif Fitzgerald uses many different themes in the book one of which is love and deceit. In the book both Tom and Daisy cheat on each other without having a care in the world whether they hurt each other or the people around them which is a common trend in the book, people lying to each other no matter what the consequences are. Cheating is one of the many examples of this reoccurring theme, love and deceit. The first example of this is when Tom invites Nick to meet his mistress, showing the reader that Tom really didn’t care who knew about the affair.

Deceit can cause many problems in the future, Jay Gatsby is one example, but there are many others, in both the printed and real worlds. In the story, Jay Gatsby is deceitful because he is in love with Daisy [which results in the loss of Daisy’s love]. Readers of the book know that a character’s deceit, in some way, shape, or form, later leads to their downfall. Throughout the time that Gatsby has known Daisy, he never told her the complete truth about who he really is and his background story.

As the plot develops, it is revealed that Daisy is also involved in a secret relationship with her past love, Gatsby. Both secret and destructive relationships of the husband and wife demonstrate their carelessness for each other's feelings. When Gatsby confesses his love for Daisy in front of her husband, Tom is quick to say, “Once in a while, I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time..” (Fitzgerald 138). This confession from Tom demonstrates his carelessness for Daisy’s feelings as he has spent many days away from her, violating and breaking their vows, and only when his relationship with her is threatened, is he able to show love for her.

According to some, love of money is the root of all evil. In some cases, simply being near money can cause moral groundings to erode. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a time where money was shored up in rich houses and thrown about lavishly in big parties. This culture of wealth and pleasure was his modern world, and he wrote The Great Gatsby to comment about it. The title character of the book, Jay Gatsby, has exorbitant wealth, as do Tom and Daisy Buchanan, other vital characters.

In The Great Gatsby, Nick states “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life” (Fitzgerald 35). This quote from Nick shows how the glamorous life he has been living with the other characters in The Great Gatsby is not all as it seems. He does not feel that having all of these things in his life has made it much better, and is constantly repelled from some of the things he loved by living this way. Another example of this emptiness is with Gatsby and his parties. Gastsby throws huge parties every weekend and lots of the city comes to them, yet they lack any true meaning for Gatsby and the rest of the people.

Tom claims he loves Daisy the whole book, but yet he cheats on her. Tom even has the nerve to get jealous when Daisy talks about Gatsby like he isn't doing something much worse. Tom also selfishly breaks apart Wilson and Myrtle, he puts on this nice guy act with Wilson while he’s slowly destroying his life. But Tom apparently still loves Daisy.

“‘Even that’s a lie,’ said Tom savagely. She didn’t know you were alive. Why- there’re things between Daisy and me that you’ll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget.” (Fitzgerald 132). Even when Tom knows that Daisy is cheating on him with Jay Gatsby, he contends his marriage and fights for her.

Magazines, motion pictures, wars. The mentioned are all contributions to changes to society; particularly changes to morality. World War I caused multiple changes in America. The roaring twenties was focused on enjoying life and living up the years of one’s youth. These changes are demonstrated in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays love, obsession, and objectification through the characters Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Some might say their love was true and Gatsby’s feelings for her was pure affection, while others say that he objectifies and is obsessed with her. Perhaps Gatsby confuses lust and obsession with love, and throughout the novel, he is determined to win his old love back. At the end of the novel, Gatsby is met with an untimely death and never got to be with Daisy. The reader is left to determined if Gatsby’s and Daisy’s love was pure and real, or just wasn’t meant to be.

Later in the novel Gatsby states, “‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby believes that the love Daisy and him had when they were younger, will be the same now if not better.

(Fitzgerald 65) The feelings Gatsby possessed for his past love, Daisy Buchanan, were real while also very young and immature. Daisy matured to be with other men while Gatsby spent his whole life and wealth searching for Daisy. The purest form of love shown in this novel was came from George Wilson. His jealousy was shown when he killed Gatsby assuming he was his wife’s lover.

The first incidence of moral decay in the novel is shown through the multiple affairs of the characters. Tom is married to Daisy but still has a mistress named Myrtle. Myrtle is married to a lower class man who she believed to be a gentleman. Through these multiple affairs, the characters do not show any regrets and lack morality. Tom is also an abusive man not only to Daisy but to Myrtle as well, “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her [Myrtle] nose with his open hand,” (Fitzgerald 37).

Conversely, however, hedonism, Gatsby’s hedonistic lifestyle, and the actions taken by Gatsby to gain that life are what truly cost him Daisy. His dirty dealings to fund his life in order to woo Daisy scare her into a state of fear and insecurity toward being associated with Gatsby. Thus, Daisy and her love of him has shattered and lost forever for Gatsby. Furthermore, because of his lifestyle and his hedonism having the sole goal of pleasure being Daisy, in the end, Gatsby has no one except for Nick and his father. He dies, has a funeral with no one present, and is forgotten, despite being so famous at the start of the novel.

Characters throughout The Great Gatsby present themselves with mysterious and questionable morals. Affairs, dishonest morals, criminal professions, weak boundaries and hypocritical views are all examples of immorality portrayed in The Great Gatsby. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, lies and mischief fill the lives of many and significantly damage numerous relationships. First, Jay Gatsby's whole life is consumed into a massive lie. His personality traits set him apart from others and the attention he accumulates motivates him to falsely portray his life.

The theme of moral decay is best represented by the excessive use of lying by the character Jay Gatsby. Gatsby entire existence is an absolute lie that he created in hopes to make his American dream a reality. Fitzgerald reveals to the reader that Gatsby was not his actual name stating, “James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally his name.”(Fitzgerald98). Gatsby changed his name in hopes that the real him, James Gatz, would have ceased to exist because he