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Marriage And Love In The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby does not depict marriage and love in the traditional sense. Characters in this novel are married to the money and love the power it gives them. Love is caring for each other, supporting one another through tough times, always being by your partner’s side no matter what happens in life; good and bad. In this story the American dream of being wealthy gets in the way of true love. In most of these relationships love is missing, marriage had become a game; it was ok to go behind one another’s back to achieve their dark goal, abusiveness acceptable. For example on page 12 it says “Tom Buchanan broke her nose (Myrtle) with his open hand.” Take Jay Gatsby for example a man in love with a rich, young and beautiful woman named Daisy. He knew the only way for her to even notice him would be if he was rich. He lived in the illusion that money equaled happiness and that followed him till the day he died. Nothing made him happy he always wanted more and more. Sure his love for money made him wealthy but whether he had nothing or all the money in the world he could still not buy true love.
Like all the relationships in this novel Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s marriage is not what most would call a successful one. Did both of them achieve what they wanted? Yes, Tom got the beautiful wife of his dreams and Daisy got a very wealthy and powerful husband. The marriage was very beneficial for the both of them. They used each other to get what they truly wanted which was not true

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