Corruption In The Great Gatsby

Daisy’s reactions to certain events show how she makes decisions based off of what will give her the most money, rather than what will be the best option for her. Daisy was in love with Gatsby, but he was poor and he had to go to war, so she decided to wait for him. However, it took too long for him to return, so Daisy got impatient, and she married Tom instead. Tom was rich, and Daisy knew he would bring her an old money status. When Gatsby finally meets with Daisy again, she sees how rich he is and she regrets her decison to marry Tom. Gatsby shows her his house, and his fancy shirts, which makes Daisy say that “They’re such beautiful shirts… It makes me sad because

Why do we often look up to the higher class? Why do we crave the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy and famous? Murder, cheating, gambling and wild parties are just some examples of what went on in The Great Gatsby. First of all, the rich were also criminals and may have gotten their endless money in illegal matters. Secondly, most all of the rich characters shown throughout the book were unfaithful to his or her spouse. Thirdly, the wealthy were lavishly wasteful and did not seem to care about others. Finally, a character that expresses immorality the most is Tom Buchanan. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, his intentions were for people to learn to know that being rich or the hunger for money can lead to the immoral actions including some

New York City, overwhelmed with success, money and image in the 1920s was drowning in corruption. F Scott Fitzgerald composed a riveting novel, The Great Gatsby, which follows the journey of several characters dealing with love, greed, confusion and lust during the 1920s. Fitzgerald illustrates the corruption of the American dream by allowing us to follow the downfall of Jay Gatsby, revealing the reality of the American dream.

As a society, America has created certain ideas and stereotypes of each class including the citizens within them. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses around the superficial communities of West and East Egg, and their misconceptions of one another. The citizens of East Egg, such as Daisy and Tom Buchanan, frown upon the up-and-coming men of West Egg. This includes Gatsby, who dreams of the riches they take for granted. Gatsby, who obtains his money through dishonest means appears villainous, unsuccessfully attempting to join the wealthy and elite society of East egg. However, there may be more to Gatsby's story. As Nick, the narrator, says he is “worth the whole damn bunch put together”(154). Through his descriptions and comparison of Tom’s house and Gatsby’s house, Fitzgerald reveals the true nature of the two men. While Gatsby appears to be morally corrupt, in the end he actually has pure intentions, instead it is Tom who emits negativity and is ungrateful for his life.

Daisy leaving Gatsby is one of the greatest examples of the moral decay of people in this time period with the growth in wealth. Her and Gatsby had something special together when they were younger and all of that was taken away when she had realized that social status meant more to her than her true feelings. “At his lips’ touch, she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”(Fitzgerald, 117). This is how she had really felt, she had wanted to kiss him and had loved Gatsby. He had waited for this moment with this “golden girl” forever and finally there was kissing her. They were young and in love. "She's not leaving me!" Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. "Certainly

When they first got married, the love that existed between Daisy and Tom appeared to be true. However, as their marriage progressed, realities including Tom’s multiple affairs depreciated Daisy’s love for Tom and her tolerance for their marriage. Tom’s affairs drove Daisy to start flirting with Gatsby. However, at the end of chapter 7, it started to become clear that Daisy was going to remain with Tom, rather than Gatsby. Gatsby tells Daisy that he wants her to say that she never loved Tom, but she struggles in doing so. When Gatsby says he wants to speak to Daisy alone, she responds, “Even alone I can't say I never loved Tom...It wouldn't be true." (133) This truly hurts Gatsby because she knows Tom will not take care of Daisy they way he would and that he just isn’t good enough for her. Whatever there was between Gatsby and Daisy seems to be coming to an end and Gatsby’s “presumptuous little flirtation is over.” (135) Tom and Daisy’s carelessness to their struggling marriage resulted in the unhappiness and heartache of

Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan who is very wealthy. Daisy only married Tom for his money. For a minute Daisy regrets not being with Gatsby. In chapter five Gatsby invites Daisy over and she sees a pile of Gatsby’s shirts. The shirts were sheer linen, silk, and fine flannel. Daisy sobs over the shirts and says, “They’re such beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because i’ve never seen such beautiful shirts before.” Daisy is showing her interest in materialism. She doesn’t cry because she has reunited with Gatsby, she cries because Gatsby belongs to her society now and she regrets not being with him.

Daisy Buchanan is a very materialistic woman. Not only does she marry Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man, she believes that money makes everything better. Her ideologies about wealth, and the fact that she pays dearly for her wealth and fails to care, shows her obsession with financial stability. In a sense, regardless of how badly Tom treats her, she fails to care. Instead, she holds tightly to the idea that money is the cure-all for everything. The night before their wedding, she wants to call everything off and not marry him but she decides to go through with it because of her desire of money. Daisy and Gatsby get reunited 5 years later and Daisy is filled with regret regarding her decision to marry Tom. Tom cheated on Daisy on their honeymoon,

During the time in our country's history called the roaring twenties, society had a new obsession, money. Just shortly after the great depression, people's focus now fell on wealth and success in the economic realm. Many Americans would stop at nothing to become rich and money was the new factor in separation of classes within society. Wealth was a direct reflection of how successful a person really was and now became what many people strived to be, to be rich. Wealth became the new stable in the "American dream" that people yearned and chased after all their lives. In the novel entitled the great Gatsby, the ideals of the so

The Great Gatsby is about how corrupted the American Dream was and how it affected many individual’s lives. The characters in the novel have a huge role in portraying the corruption and lifestyles of those living the dream during the 1920’s. Due to the idea of a success promise that the East had to offer, many westerners packed their lives up and headed that way in hope of a better life. Nick Caraway, one of the main characters, is one of the westerners that took the gamble of moving east during this time period. Nick who was originally from Minneapolis- St. Paul, wanted to experience what New York had to offer. “Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the rigid edge of the universe- so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I suppose it could support one more single man” (Fitzgerald 20). In the summer of 1922, he decided to rent a house in what is known as West Egg, Long Island. The only connections Nick had in the East were his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan, whom he had met at college years ago. Daisy and Tom, along with their young daughter lived in the East Egg. The mansion next to Nick’s house belonged to Jay Gatsby. In the beginning of the novel, Nick makes it known to readers that he hasn’t seen Gatsby even though he was throwing large, loud, and outrageous parties almost every night. However, when Nick and Gatsby do meet they become rather close and by the end of

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that has a large focus on the ideas of the American Dream and social class in the 1920s. In the novel, the people of West Egg and East Egg are people of the upper who have earned money either through inheritance or working hard and have had many opportunities to make their American Dream a reality. The people of the Valley of Ashes are people of lower class who have little to no money and have to work all their lives to make ends meet. Even though both social classes strive for the same thing, The American Dream, neither of them will ever truly achieve it. Fitzgerald uses a vast contrast in the settings of East Egg, West Egg, and

Daisy grew up spoiled due to the vast wealth she obtained from being ‘old money’, which caused her to become selfish and self-centred. Daisy had become selfish to the point that she has an expensive and materialistic desire or want. When Gatsby shows Daisy his mansion, she gazed in awe as “she admired […] the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquils […] and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.”(Fitzgerald,97) Daisy, all along, does not have feelings for Gatsby, but more for his money and expensive possessions, as she revealed her true self during Tom and Gatsby’s argument. Daisy is selfish even if money was not involved, as she does not feel grateful for Gatsby taking the blame for her killing Myrtle Wilson. For instance, when Nick tells Gatsby about Mrytle dying, Gatsby replies “’Yes,’ he said after the moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was.’” (Fitzgerald, 154) When Daisy cried in Gatsby’s mansion, she was crying about her actions in killing Myrtle, meanwhile she does not care about Gatsby’s act of chivalry. Furthermore, Daisy takes advantage of Gatsby by taking Tom along to Gatsby’s party, when Daisy was personally invited to essentially go alone. When Gatsby saw Tom appearing to his party, Gastby with a light temper has a conversation with Tom. He says “I know your wife’, continued Gatsby, almost aggressively.”

Fitzgerald presents decadence, debauchery, and corruption through the techniques he employs throughout the extract. Symbolism is used often in the extract with it mostly relating to colour. For example, blue is associated with Gatsby, 'In his blue gardens...'. Yellow relates to gold and wealth, '...yellow cocktail music...'. Light showed an attraction to money, danger, if you get too close to the light you will only get burned by the flames. '...men and girls came and went like moths...'. Repetition is used often in the beginning. The word 'and' demonstrates the lavish excess of the 1920's. '...salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.' '...whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols

Daisy Buchanan has a similar lifestyle to Tom, she’s wealthy ‘voice is full of money’ and always wore ‘white’ symbolising her purity and wealth. However as a woman of a higher class, there not much she can do in her ‘shallow life’, as she has the money but doesn’t know how to plan events ‘what do people plan?’. This shows that she is not content with her knowledge and understanding of life therefore even with money she isn’t ‘happy’. This leads her to ‘have an affair’ with an ex-lover whom she so adored before she married Tom ‘I did love him once – But I loved you too’. In the novel, Daisy only every seeks true love when she’s with Gatsby but ‘a rich girls don’t marry poor boys’, so due to this social difference between them, she knows the only place she will ever have security is with Tom. Tom describes their affair as a ‘presumptuous little flirtation’ because to Daisy, she knew she was never going to marry Gatsby but to Gatsby it was just never

Money is generally presented as a symbol for stability and happiness, however The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald contradicts this idea. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby is known for his unimaginable formation of wealth and has the innate capability to achieve his dreams, however he does not realize that his dreams are above him due to the heavy corruption present in the 1920’s. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents money as an antagonist since wealth is the primary stimulant in the characters’ motivations, relationships, and happiness.