Alcoholism In The Great Gatzby

Obsessions cause havoc and can potentially ruin a person’s life, yet society normalizes and capitalizes on their effects. Obsessive thoughts and behaviors are becoming increasingly more common in today’s society. They can have many detrimental effects due to the lack of control it causes in a person. With the popularity of romantic comedies and love songs, borderline stalking behaviors are viewed as normal acts of love. The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, features a man hopelessly obsessed with a past girlfriend. Additionally, There’s Something About Mary is a movie about a man demonstrating stalker-like behavior toward a woman that he has been obsessed with since his childhood. Due to deficits in their own life and self-esteem,

“Being a victim is supposed to set you free; it acquits you of any agency, any sense of responsibility to the person who did you harm. It’s not your fault, they say. Leave him, they say. Nobody ever tells you what to do if leaving isn’t an option.” Imagine how a woman, especially in the 1920’s, felt to be in this position.

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby spends his life building wealth in order to earn the love of Daisy Buchanan, a woman he loved in his younger years who could not marry him due to his lack of wealth. Daisy, though not a character with many appearances in the book (since Gatsby is the main character), is an extremely emotional character that just seems a bit off throughout the book. I believe that if Daisy were to visit a psychiatrist, she would be diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder. To prove my assumption, I will cite instances where she exhibits symptoms of this and explain how they come

Charlie’s friends even take advantage of how nice he is. They always make him the root of their jokes. When Charlie asks a barber shop owner to move his illegally parked car, the owner laughs at him and just throws him the keys to the car and tells him to move it himself. The whole town takes advantage of Charlie though, not only his friends. In the supermarket a woman asks to cut in front of him inline and then ends up having a cart full of groceries. This is Charlies breaking point. He starts tensing up, you can tell something is happening. All of a sudden he starts talking in a different voice, and finds vagaclean in the woman’s cart that cut in front of him. So to take his anger out on her he gets on the store microphone and announces she has vagaclean in her cart. We learn this new personalities name when he is drowning a young girl in the water fountain who disobeyed him earlier. When the girl says she is going to tell her father on him, he announces that he is Hank. After this change in personality he starts going

Throughout his diary entries, Charlie demonstrates an emotional attachment to his Aunt Helen. Although Charlie isn’t aware, Aunt Helen is in his subconscious: the part of the mind that an individual is not aware of but influences one's actions. According to Charlie, his aunt is his favorite person in the world. Aunt Helen lived under her sister's roof for her last few years of life after living a dreadful life. This woman was formerly molested by a family friend and when she revealed this information to her parents, the suffering didn’t stop because they saw it as a false claim and continued inviting this man over. This traumatic event led to an overuse of drugs, the frequent reentry to a hospital, a jobless life, and lastly the repeated sexual abuse of a young version of Charlie. Charlie develops a form of

The reason Charlie travels to Paris in the first place is to attempt to regain custody of his daughter, Honoria. He lost custody of Honoria due to a problem with alcoholism. Because he was not fit to care for a child he gave up his custody rights to Honoria to his sister-in-law, Marion. When Charlie consents to the guardianship he states he “…was flat on my back in a sanitarium and the market had cleaned me out. I knew I’d acted badly and thought it would bring any peace to Helen, I’d agree to anything.” (Fitzgerald 707) He loves and cares for Honoria enough that he would sort through his alcoholism and become a fit parent mentally and financially. The only problem is that his past kept him from gaining custody of her and he had lost so much precious time with her. He knew he lost time but still remains optimistic of their future together and dreams of being apart of her life. He wants to put “…a little of himself into her before she crystallized utterly.” (Fitzgerald 704) But then states, “It was hopeless to try to know her in so short a time.” (Fitzgerald 704) Although Charlie talks Marion into considering giving him custody this consideration comes to a startling halt when Charlie’ old friends Duncan and Lorraine arrive at the residence uninvited and highly intoxicated. The short article “Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY and BABYLON REVISITED” by Brian Sutton states that, “Although he treats them coldly, this reminder of his past misbehaviors temporarily destroys his bid to get his daughter back.” (Sutton 3) Marion heavily disapproves of this interaction even though it was uninvited and postpones giving Charlie custody rights for another

Charlie was trying to change for the better, his sister-in-law not liking him reflected him in many ways as well for the fact that he had to prove to her that he was a changed man to have custody of his daughter again. He went from drinking drastically to having as little as one drink per day. Who says being a young dad was an easy task? Often Hornia questions why she wasn't able to live with her dad. As stated in the story Marion questions whether he has changed when his old friends entered his life, as they say, birds of a feather flock together. Well, we do want to know was his friends going to influence him back downhill? will he go back to his insane drinking days? In the story, it does mention he meets up with his old friends, in my opinion, Charlie is having some difficulties trying to overcome his drinking habits, although he shouldn't be judged for his past but he should be observed for his current actions.

13-14) For her, Charlie was the embodiment of that villain. Though the argument that resulted in the incident was the fault of both parties, Marion is unwilling or unable to consider Helen an equal party to Charlie's excesses. Marion's hatred of Charlie makes it impossible for her to impartially judge his attempts to rebuild his life. When she questions, "How long are you going to stay sober, Charlie?" (p. 12) at dinner the first evening of his return, her behavior is colored by her ill feelings toward her brother-in-law, but her concern for his willingness to stay sober is valid and understandable given Charlie's past behavior and her genuine concern for Honoria's best interests. His continued separation from Honoria is wrenching, but Marion's resistance to relinquishing custody, though partially fuelled by her hatred of Charlie, is also motivated by her fondness for her niece.

His frustration grows after his friends start heading off to college and has a constant stressor from all the flashbacks he’s having, believing that he himself killed his Aunt. Charlie was close to his aunt as a child and it is obvious that aunt Helen was playing favoritism when it came to charlie. Aunt Helen gave him a special attention and she was kind to him, she told him that she understood him and he was special but this in a way was a ruse. Charlie repressed his memories of aunt Helen 's sexual assault but started realizing eventually, Charlie has a mental breakdown during his first sexual encounter with Sam and the realization of his past comes flooding in after she touched his leg similar to the way his aunt Helen did to him. He was sexually assaulted by his aunt and he tried forgot all of this and he tried to move on with his life but he saw memories that haunted him. This could be the possible reason and explanation as to why he said to her sister that he wished their aunt to die. Afterward, charlie is in a hospital after trying to commit suicide and must start accepting the truth to get past what happened. Charlie is often trying to please people and is always worried about how other people feel but never truly worries about himself, it could be that charlie is very caring but it is possible that charlie has had this way of thinking instilled in his mind: aunt help was very disturbed as charlie knew this and because of this he was constantly

In the 1920’s there was a lot of crime. People thought that the reason for this crime was alcohol. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. There was a person in the book who was a bootlegger. In the real world that was a big problem. The government made the eighteenth amendment, which made the use and manufacturing illegal. In the 20’s people would abuse their wives and children. “Drinking got so bad that men who drank a lot would abuse their wives and kids. In 1920 alcohol manufacturing was banned after world war I.” This is the reason why they wanted to ban alcohol. Men would drink a lot and they would abuse their family because they can’t control themselves. In the Great Gatsby Tom would drink a lot. “ ‘I'll say it whenever I

Nick describes watching endless parties going on in Gatsby’s house every weekend. Guests party day and night and then on Mondays servants clean up the mess. Everything is about excess and a sense of overkill. Each weekend, guests are ferried back and forth to Manhattan by Rolls-Royce, crates of oranges and lemons are juiced, an army of caterers sets up tents and lighting, food is piled high, the bar is overwhelmingly stocked, and there is a huge band playing. It's an even bigger deal than it sounds because all this is happening during the Prohibition, when alcohol was supposedly unavailable.

The Great Gatsby is the story of a man named Nick who lived in the west egg in New York right next door to a very wealthy gentleman named Mr. Gatsby. However the one thing that is never explained through the story his how Mr. Gatsby got his fortune. He certainly didn't inherit it as his parents were not very well off. And he was not part of any well known companies. Mr. Gatsby earned his fortune through some sort of illegal drug trade.

Because of the stock market crash, the custody of Charlie’s daughter is currently in the hands of Lincoln and Marion. When Charlie is trying to talk to Marion and Lincoln about regaining custody, Marion gets sick. Marion’s sickness ends Charlie’s battle to regain custody of his daughter. In the text, Lincoln says, “‘Marion’s sick,’ Lincoln answered shortly. ‘I know this thing isn’t altogether your fault, but I can’t have her go to pieces about it.

Jake Rodriguez Language Arts - Period 4 May 13, 2015 The Boiling Point of the 1960's The 1960's hid a series of unresolved issues that exploded rebellion and revolt in the American society. One of those issues was alcoholism. In the movies, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest directed by Miloš Forman and The Best Years of Our Lives directed by William Wilder, citizens are portrayed to use alcohol in order to repair themselves.

Charlie and his wife lived in Paris during the twenties, and just as any other night they were out drinking and having fun. They get into a fight witch results in his wife, Helen, kissing another man. Charlie storms home, and an hour later when Helen has stumbled herself home, Charlie locks her out of their apartment and she dies soon after. Charlie has a breakdown and is institutionalized right before he looses all his money in the stock market crash of 1929. As the story opens three years later Charlie is back in Paris, sober, determined to get custody over his daughter, Honoria, who lives with Helens sister, Marion.