The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s, ending with the Great Depression, in which jazz music and dance became popular, mainly in the United States. Francis Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most famous authors during the Jazz Age, best known for his novel The Great Gatsby. In this novel Fitzgerald offers a variety of themes. One theme is more developed than the others which is social stratification. The Great Gatsby is rewarded as a brilliant piece of social commentary, offering a clear image of American’s life in the 1920s. By creating intelligible social classes “old money, new money, and no money” Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the Marxism running throughout every stratum of society.
First of all, Tom and Daisy Buchanan are in the old money class. They shirk responsibility for their actions. Daisy runs over Myrtle while driving Gatsby’s
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Gatsby bought a mansion across the bay from Daisy to stay close to her. He started throwing parties hoping to get her attention, so she will come to one of his parties. Nick said about Gatsby, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you." After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.” He took the blame for Myrtle’s death trying defending Daisy, and he kept the truth a secret that Daisy was the driving the car when she ran over Myrtle. In the end, everything Gatsby did is for nothing. Daisy never loved Gatsby as much as he did, and she picked Tom over him because he has old money which makes him more respectful in the community. Hence the will still divide the people with different social classes between the old money and the new
Another drastic situation created by Daisy arises. However, she does not have to deal with the consequences of it. Myrtle’s husband sees Gatsby in the car, and makes the assumption that he was the one having an affair with Myrtle, which is why she would run into the street to leave her husband and be with the man in the car. Instead of owning up to her mistake, Daisy allows Gatsby to willingly take the blame for Myrtle’s death. When Nick asks if Daisy was driving the car, he replies “‘Yes, but of course I’ll say I was’” (Fitzgerald 137). This causes George Wilson to kill Gatsby, an innocent man, because of the assumption that he was the one who killed Myrtle and had an affair with her. Through all this, Daisy never confessed to being the person behind the wheel of the car and Tom never confessed to being the man who Myrtle was a mistress to. After this incident, Daisy and Tom packed their bags and moved to the Midwest, avoiding the problems they created yet
Throughout the novel, the reader is constantly wondering who exactly Gatsby is and the mystery as to how he made his riches. It is later learned that he gained his money dishonestly. Gatsby did this with the purpose of gaining the woman he loved since she wanted to live a wealthy life. Daisy’s greed drove Gatsby into having the ambition of becoming rich. Daisy had even chosen Tom Buchanan to marry to live a wealthy life regardless of how poorly treated she was by him. She picked him over Gatsby since Gatsby was not rich at the time they met. She even exaggerates her greed by killing Myrtle and uses Tom to blame Gatsby to keep her life of wealth. Nick says “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” (Fitzgerald 136-145). Gatsby admits to the murder she committed and in the end is killed by Winston,the husband of Myrtle. Their strive for money, specifically Daisy, lead to the death of Gatsby, a man that simply wanted to be with his love by any means necessary, yet fails in the
It’s a common misconception that money is equal to happiness, and Daisy is a sad, bored woman, afraid of the future. She is selfish and self centered, caring so much for the wealth that she believes will make her happy that in Chapter 7 her voice is said to be “full of money” (pg #). All the worse, when she kills Myrtle, she feels no remorse whatsoever, as she is incapable of caring for anyone but herself. Gatsby cannot see any of her bad qualities. He simply sees a beautiful young woman that he thinks he deserves. In chapter 8, Nick says that “It excited [Gatsby], too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”(pg#). Gatsby is blinded by his desire for Daisy, fueled by the wants of other men, that he sees nothing bad about her. Daisy loved Tom and Gatsby equally and for the same reason: Their wealth. With Gatsby dead Daisy returns to Tom not even shaken by his death, and just as nick says they would do, they retreat from the chaos they cause into their money when they move away.
Daisy sees this as does almost the exact same thing, only with Gatsby. By expressing this carelessness for each other, one can only begin to imagine the carelessness they have for other human beings. Tom treats Myrtle even worse than he treats Daisy, but Myrtle doesn’t seem to care, because she is mainly interested in his money. Tom doesn’t seem to worry about anyone but himself. In his own spite he ruins his life, as well as Daisy’s, Gatsby’s, and Myrtle’s. Daisy shows her carelessness during the time where Jordan, Tom, Daisy, Nick and Gatsby go to town. Her and Gatsby act like they are in love and make Tom incredibly jealous even though he is having his own affair. Tom accuses Gatsby of trying to start trouble in the Buchanan house, and they begin to fight. Daisy yells at Tom and tells him that she no longer loves him and is in love with Gatsby. Tom proceeds to tell everyone how Gatsby came across his money, and once Daisy finds out it was by illegal gambling and crime, she seems much less interested in him. Daisy appears to be more interested on what is on the outside of people, rather than the inside.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writings largely focus on the American aristocracy during the 1920s. The ‘20s became alternatively known as “the Jazz Age,” a term coined by Fitzgerald with connotations encompassing the prosperity, frivolity, and decadence of the upper class. The atmosphere and mindset of lavish excess are preserved in the plots and characters of Fitzgerald’s writings. Although Fitzgerald’s protagonists are wealthy, there is a noticeable distinction between those who come from “old money” and those who are considered “new money”. Amory Blaine, of This Side of Paradise, and Jay Gatsby, of The Great Gatsby, exemplify this difference.
Daisy, who is another careless character in this book is can be blamed for three things, hitting Myrtle with Gatsby’s car, not confessing to it and allowing her affair with Gatsby to start up and continue. Daisy not only hit myrtle with Gatsby’s car but also didn’t decide to stop, “Daisy stepped on it” (151). She had no intentions of swerving before the hit or slowing down and stopping after it. This shows her jealousy towards Tom’s affair with Myrtle, along with that she didn’t take responsibility and selfishly did not confess to what she had done and how it could affect others. Secondly, she subconsciously leads Gatsby on into thinking that he really did have her back all to himself when realistically she was not sure what she was going to do. While talking to Jordan “She realized at last what she was doing — and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all.” (175). Her affair with Gatsby was risky and turned into nothing but damage in the end. Lastly, Daisy says to Gatsby "I did love him once – but I loved you too" (140) referring to Tom. She shows her carelessness over her marriage seeing as she had an affair with Gatsby and didn’t think to put a stop to it. If Daisy had not had the affair with him, there would be no reason for Tom to want revenge on Gatsby in the first place, therefore Gatsby would’ve have been blamed.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the reader sees a common theme of corruption of the American Dream. In the 1920’s, the times are changing in America and morals are becoming looser and the lifestyle of the wealthy is more careless. New fashion, attitude, and music is what nicknamed this era the “Jazz Age,” greatly influencing Fitzgerald’s writing. He created similarities between many things in pop culture and the journey his characters Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle are taking to achieve the American dream. Through the use of the lively, yet scandalous, jazz music from the 1920’s, Fitzgerald reflects the attitudes of the characters in The Great Gatsby at the end of innocence and prevalence of
He wants closure about what happened between them. Daisy confronts Gatsby about an affair she had with Tom, and he doesn’t even care at this point because what they had was ‘real’. She claims to love them both but she decides she wants to go back with Gatsby and not her husband. On her way back, she accidently kills a woman on the side of the road speeds off with Gatsby’s car. Gatsby gets blamed for the death and the husband of the woman shoots him. No one attends Gatsby’s funeral but Nick. This goes to show Gatsby really had no body in his life, and his own true love whom he did everything for, didn’t love him equally. Throughout the whole book, Fitzgerald points out that Gatsby was living his American dream, but because his dream was Daisy, he was living his dream out of fantasy not reality.
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.”
The novel The Great Gatsby was written in a time and place in which the separation between classes based on money was a great factor. The two rich classes were the old money and the new money. The two classes were also physically separated. East Egg is for the great “old money” and West Egg is for the “new money”. This segregation based on class is a problem discussed by the Marxists. They understood the huge differences and were the people who believed that there should be no class separation. The Marxist idea of class separation is well depicted in the character Jay Gatsby and his passionate fighting against the class system, in Tom Buchanan’s arrogance and power, typical for the rich people, and in the way George Wilson’s life is negatively influenced by his interactions with the higher class.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary work, The Great Gatsby, creates an artificial world in which the main characters desire the clout of money; where the characters, the plot, and the setting are deeply immersed in a capitalistic vow to shatter the American Dream, allowing certain socialistic aspects to emerge with regularity. This oppression of power framework can be connected to a Marxist Theory of belief through power struggles amongst characters. The main characters face oppression against one another in such senses allowing for corruptive factors to be engaged. Corruption and innocence of Gatsby and Tom’s weaknesses toward the women of the novel create such viewpoints that are construed within the text as well as a hint toward the negative side of Capitalism and the promotion of
When Gatsby and Daisy were returning from town Daisy hits Myrtle and does not even stop to check what happened to the victim. “Daisy was driving carelessly by driving too fast and by allowing herself to be distracted by the day's unpleasant events. Finally, after hitting Myrtle with Gatsby's car, Daisy panics and flees the scene, not even stopping to see if her victim survived” (Lance 2000). She leaves Gatsby with his car knowing he will get into trouble as it is his car but she does not care. Gatsby has no choice but to take the blame on himself as he truly loves Daisy and this leads to his death as Wilson tracked the owner of the car that killed his wife and kills Gatsby as the car belongs to him and Wilson thinks he killed Myrtle. This carelessness by Daisy leads to 3 deaths as Wilson also kills himself after killing Gatsby. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up their mess” (Fitzgerald 167). After this she leaves on vacations not caring what happens to Gatsby neither she accepts her mistake. Daisy was also careless in her affair with Gatsby firstly she married Tom behind his back when he Gatsby was gone war. When Gatsby gets wealthy she says she loves him and she tries to get close to him calling him over for lunch and goes with him in Toms car to town “You take Nick and Jordan. We’ll follow you in the coupe” (Fitzgerald 127) instead of going with Tom who offered to take her in the circus wagon. The moment she gets in trouble she runs of stranding Gatsby all by himself leaving him to take the blame of her
Karl Marx wrote in his 1859 ‘Towards a Critique of Political Economy’ that “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social existence that determines their consciousness”. By stating this, Marx sheds light into the workings of ‘The Great Gatsby’ thus showing that the social circumstances in which the characters find themselves define them, and that these circumstances consist of core Marxist principles a Capitalistic society. These principles being ‘commodity fetishism’ and ‘reification’ are useful aids in interpreting and understanding the core themes that run throughout the text.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of The Great Gatsby, he creates an artificial world where each character’s sole purpose in life is money, and the essence of desire is wealth. It is clear within the text that the characters feel as if they are totally limited by the amount of money they make, therefore, their view of being satisfied and achieving in life is depicted against their financial status. Poverty limits decision and action. The novel is set in the 1920’s when the newly founded ‘American Dream’ was being strived for, the idea that if one worked hard, they would ‘reap’ the rewards, no matter their
The main rivalry within The Great Gatsby is seen through Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. They are both jealous of each other, not only because of the money, but also Daisy. Jay Gatsby, later on becomes even more jealous of Tom due to Daisy Saying she “can’t say that (she) never loved Tom.” (Fitzgerald #). It breaks Gatsby’s heart to know that Tom means so much to her. Jay Gatsby acts on his jealousy by buying a mansion across the bay and gives extravagant parties in hopes that Daisy will come to one (Novels for Students). Once he finds out that Daisy does not like his parties, he cuts them off completely. During an outing they are all on their way back from New York, and Daisy hits Myrtle while driving Tom's car. Gatsby takes the blame so Daisy will not get in trouble. He is so in love with her that he will do anything just to receive her love back. Even though Daisy knows, she still continues to be with