Examples Of Alcoholism In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby to discuss society, relationships, and money. The book takes place during the roaring 20’s, a time of parties and big business, and follows the lives of Nick, Tom, Daisy, and Jay Gatsby. Many characters demonstrate their true intentions through the way they talk and react with others, but Daisy Buchanon is especially characterized through her own actions. F. Scott Fitzgerald wants the audience to view Daisy as a greedy and self absorbed pretty girl, and he proves it with her actions, rather than description.

Daisy is a vain lady. She marries Tom for money and status, and turns her back on true love and happiness, which is represented by Gatsby. Her American Dream is to enjoy a luxurious and comfortable life given to her by, hopefully a man who truly loves her, and whom she also loves. The corruption of her human values begins when she decides not to wait anymore for Gatsby, her real love, but to take the opportunity that Tom Buchanan offers, which are money and status. Her choices reveal her vain and superficial nature hidden beneath her beautiful and innocent look. When Gatsby returns with wealth and status in order

​In The Great Gatsby the character Daisy Buchanan was one of the characters that due to her decisions in the past her present is not what she wanted. This affects the story from the beginning to the end. Daisy was from Louisville, Kentucky before the war, many military officers chased her. In those many officers Gatsby included he lies to her about his past and tells her that he is wealthy, soon after she falls in love with Gatsby and promises that she will wait for him. But during the war she marries a man named Tom Buchanan, who promised her a wealthy lifestyle. Later, Nick her cousin helps her and Gatsby reunite after so many years, they have at first an awkward meeting, but after Nick leaves them alone and comes back they seem to be happy.

How much do our choices directly influence our destiny? The destiny of others? In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald follows Nick’s affairs in 1920s surrounded by a world of exuberant mansions and fortune, as well as his friendship with Jay Gatsby. However, among the festivities and the drama between spouses lies Gatsby’s twisted journey to finding love. Fitzgerald uses the pattern of alcohol to categorize those who are either superior or, ultimately leading to social decay. Alcohol takes part of all social outings for those in the upper class, resulting in many outlandish actions by those under the influence. Tom Buchanan’s strong desire for alcohol shows within his harsh actions, and Gatsby’s strong grasp on sobriety shows with his sense of superiority. No matter the stance on alcohol, a person’s choices determine a destiny for better or worse.

Despite Daisy being a dislikeable character, there are some instances in which the reader feels sympathetic towards her. A big factor is the affair that Tom has with Myrtle. Daisy knows that what her husband is doing, but she still stays with him for the fact that they have a daughter together and for financial support. When Nick first sees Daisy's daughter, she says, "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." By this she means that if her daughter is in the same position she is in her marriage, she won't know of the affair that her husband might have. The reader feels bad for Daisy because she is not being treated the way a wife is supposed to be treated. That is why she is yearning for love, and Gatsby was there to give it to her. Another time is at the hotel suite scene. She doesn't know who to choose from-Tom or Gatsby. She's torn between two lovers, and both of them have their own reasons for loving her, and why she should choose them. Gatsby has a lot to offer her, and loves her for who she is. He succeeded in life just to be with her. Although Tom is having an affair, he questions her about their love, and that Gatsby cannot take his place.

This literary study will define the class-based ideal of Daisy in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jay Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is based on her upper class appearance, which represents the “ideal” of external purity. The external nature of Daisy’s appearance provides a context for her upper class sensibilities that seem to float above the nouveau riche and the lower classes. Daisy often appears as an angelic figure dressed in white that seduces Gatsby through high society mannerisms. However, Daisy is a materialistic and selfish woman that enjoys the benefits of wealth over true love, since she allows her husband, Tom Buchanan, to have extramarital affairs. Jay’s obsession with Daisy is based on a delusion of purity through the external beauty of a wealthy woman. In essence, a literary analysis of the class-based ideal of Daisy will be defined in The Great Gatsby by F. Scot Fitzgerald.

Daisy Buchanan could be mistaken as an auspicious, loving standard of beauty, but by the end of The Great Gatsby, we can infer that she more careless above anything. She had made herself seem to others as something she was not with an "excitement in her voice that men who had cared found it difficult to forget:" (9). Daisy has been corrupted from "innocence" into her selfish money ways of the 1920's and the many things that she lies about can lead to this conclusion of her carelessness. Towards the beginning of the book, Nick had made it seem as if Daisy was a sweet, pure character.

Nicks first sees Gatsby reaching towards the mysterious green light, which he later realizes is the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He calls himself an Oxford man, and speaks with a visible fake English accent. Gatsby befriends his neighbor Nick with the sole purpose of using him in order to get closer to daisy. With Nick and Jordan’s help, the two are reunited on a rainy afternoon in Nick’s house. Blindly in love, Gatsby acts like a foolish little boy, knocking down Nick’s clock. The long awaited reunion is later moved to Gatsby’s mansion. There he displays his wealth to Daisy. When he exhibits his imported shirts “suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily” (98). Daisy’s tears are not because the shirts were beautiful; her tears signify her obsession for wealth and money, which is all she cares about.

Daisy, like her husband, is a girl of material and class at heart, and Gatsby being her escape from a hierarchist world. Daisy has just grown up knowing wealth, so in her greedy pursuit of happiness and the “American Dream” Myrtle Wilson died, Gatsby's heart and life were compromised, without claiming responsibility on her part. Daisy was “by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville...” (116) Jordan says, describing early affections between Daisy and Gatsby. She goes on to say, “...all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night.” (116) . Daisy was a fancied girl who has Gatsby tied around her finger, Jordan explains that he was looking at Daisy “...in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time...” (117). Daisy, abusing Gatsby’s love for her uses it to create security and protection, greedily and selfishly allowing him to take the fault. While Daisy’s beautiful, alluring traits turn her into an innocent, naive flower, she plays the ultimate villain.

Daisy hopes for her child to be a beautiful fool because that is “the best thing a girl can be in this world” (Fitzgerald, 23). She is aware that the only opportunity for advancement as women in her day is to act oblivious and be pretty. Although this sounds shallow, it remains in touch with the times and Daisy is stating the reality of her situation, and the situation her daughter will face. Moreover, when Daisy’s child was born, Tom (her father) was not around to be a proper father. Both Daisy and her daughter were left alone by Tom and did not receive the support that is needed to raise a family. In addition, Daisy is a strong and beautiful girl, which bothers her because she knows about her husband’s mistress in New

     As Gatsby falls in love with Daisy, Nick is slightly intrigued by this almost improbable match. How can a determined, wealthy man fall in love with a woman so shallow that she wishes her daughter to “be a fool … a beautiful little fool.” (p. 17)? To everyone else, it’s obvious that Daisy is extremely

Daisy confides in Nick that she believes “the best thing a girl can be” is a “beautiful fool” which shows us that Daisy is unhappy with the shallow society of the 1920’s. This comment shows the reader’s that Daisy isn’t shallow and empty; she dislikes the impersonal nature of the people around her and wants her daughter to be a “fool” so she doesn’t notice it. This shows that Daisy does have morals and feels strongly for the people close to her. An aspect of Daisy’s character that could suggest that she is immoral is the possible promiscuity associated with her voice. Nick refers to an excitement in her voice that “men found difficult to forget” which

In 1920 the 18th amendment to the U.S. constitution went into effect, banning alcohol and beginning prohibition in America. Its supporters vilified alcohol; they claimed that alcohol was an ineffective way to escape pain, that drinkers were slaves to the drink, and that alcohol causes men to revert back to a brutish state. Fitzgerald, however, uses The Great Gatsby as an argument against prohibition. It defends alcohol, condemns the institutions which support prohibition, and encourages those who are willing to break the law.

Authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Stephen King, and Dorothy Parker were amazing authors and had a problem with drinking alcohol or doing drugs. Despite the obvious drinking and/or drug problem, the three authors were still able to function and write novels. Fitzgerald wrote his well-known novel, The Great Gatsby, without being completely sober. Fitzgerald added some of his own drunk experiences to the characters in his book The Great Gatsby, and King wrote and published a whole book about his drug addiction. Dorothy Parker on the other hand, did not show her alcohol abuse in any of her short stories. Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephen King, Dorothy parker kept her life experiences away from her writing career. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephen King both had an alcohol addiction, and both authors used the experiences that occurred when they were drunk, in their novels and used alcohol as a writing fuel.

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.”