Nick Carraway: The American Dream

Yet his actions of following and having hope in her would lead him to find her actions not supporting what he wished for. Daisy wants to be a part of his life, yet her actions and decisions would hurt him both physically and mentally. She believed a life with Gatsby would finally fulfill her. When she decides to leave the hotel room after the argument, “Staying with Gatsby she decides to drive the car overwhelmed with anger and realizes her fun with Gatsby has ended”(Samkanashvili 48). All her expectations came to the reality that what she wanted was not going to ever be what she got. Only caring about herself and her issues, after that was when she killed Myrtle. “And as a result of Myrtle’s death Gatsby gets killed for Daisy’s foolish behavior”(Samkanashvili 48). Her unreasonable consciousness was not what could save Daisy now. What she did led to the death of the person we believe she loved, yet what she did for him was not very impressive. When Gatsby’s funeral came “Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower”(Fitzgerald 174). She did not want people to know she was caught up in this business. Daisy and Tom went away on a vacation to get away from what had happened. She never cared enough for Gatsby to risk her own appearance of being ruined through her mistakes and misjudgement. But her misstep was accompanied by the physical and

His actions show that he is not loyal nor respectful towards Daisy, instead displaying apathy and disinterest. In addition to acting uncompassionate towards Daisy, he is also not taking into consideration Myrtle’s feelings. In fact, he lies to her in order to stop himself from being forced into a committed relationship. This lie that Tom tells Myrtle is not only extremely false, but also shows he is simply using her. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce” (Fitzgerald 33). Tom lying to Myrtle shows he has no intention of marrying her, instead he only wants to take advantage of her vulnerable state. Myrtle is unhappy and desperate to fulfill her dream of moving up social classes. Instead of acting sympathetically towards her situation, he exploits her weakness. Likewise, Daisy and Gatsby’s affair shows similar exploitation for one’s own personal needs over the emotions of their counterpart. Without Tom’s knowledge, Daisy has an affair with her long lost love, Gatsby. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour… (Fitzgerald 105). During this affair Daisy shows no acknowledgement of Tom’s feelings, the man she married and pledged to be loyal to. At the same time, she is also exploiting Gatsby. Authors say, “...his desire to marry Daisy as an attempt to enter/create

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

Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George, and the lover of Tom Buchanan, is brutally murdered toward the end of the novel. After an uncivilized afternoon in New York, Daisy and Gatsby head swiftly back to East Egg. Gatsby explains to Nick, “It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew” (Fitzgerald 109). Myrtle ran out toward the car looking for Tom but sadly for her it is not him. Many know about Tom’s affair, but not with whom he is having it, especially Daisy. Daisy never slows the car down, and she never realizes who she hits. This shows that Daisy is oblivious to Myrtles existence. Myrtle is sleeping with her husband, she ruins their marriage, and Daisy kills her. The irony exists in this because Daisy actually saves her marriage by killing

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.

Many of famous figures in our society’s past have spoken their minds about the American Dream, for each and every one of those minds, are a different response. J. G. Ballard once spoke of his American Dream, “The American Dream had run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.” The outlook on this dream has changed over the years it has existed, most societies nowadays look onto this as a “curse” or something worse. This dream now is speculated as hurting our home, America. As Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men, the grave story of the American Dream was revealed by main characters, George, Lennie, and Candy. These main characters give us an inside look into what they think the American Dream is.

So with that being said, he turns to making his money by illegal ways like bootlegging. Daisy is to blame for most of Gatsby’s problems because of the way she feels about money, she has affected other characters due to this issue. Gatsby has to be the most affected by Daisy and her decisions, like not waiting for him when he went to war. Daisy has Gatsby head over heels, no matter what she does, he cannot stop obsessing over her and will support her in everything she decides to do. Even to the end of the book where she kills Myrtle, Tom’s mistress with Gatsby’s car. Despite the fact that he knows that she killed a person, he still wants to take the blame for her. A little before she killed Myrtle, Tom finds out about the affair she was having with Gatsby. Tom confronts them about it and Gatsby comes clean to him and tells him what he thinks is true. Which is that Daisy loves him not Tom and she wants to leave him, yet daisy is speechless because at some point she did love Tom and is not so sure she wants to leave him. Gatsby ends up dead because of Daisy bright idea of killing someone and her husband Tom blames it on Gatsby knowing that Wilson was going to kill him. This shows the type of person Daisy is, so she has made many decisions in her past that eventually came to hunt many others in the present till the end of the book her

When Daisy tells hims she cannot claim she does not love her husband Tom, it deflates Gatsby. He can't believe it. But Daisy is also deceitful because she does still love Gatsby but won't confess it either. Tom sees something going on, but in an attempt to prove that Gatsby does not threaten him, he lets Gatsby and Daisy drive together from the city back to their homes in West Egg. This drives turns tragic as well when Gatsby's car hits and kills Myrtle, Tom's lover and Mr. Wilson girlfriend. There is more deception when Gatsby tells everyone it was himself driving the car when in fact it really was Daisy. Tom tells Mr. Wilson about the accident and Mr. Wilson goes mad, killing Gatsby and then himself.

The dramatic increase intensifies when Daisy overrides his husband’s paramour, Myrtle Wilson. Retaining his complete and unwavering loyalty to Daisy, Gatsby takes the blame upon himself, while Daisy is conspiring with her husband in the

“In his blue gardens men and women came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (Fitzgerald 39). In his character, his relationships, and his gatherings, Jay Gatsby epitomized the illusion of a perfect romance. When Gatsby and Daisy met in 1917, he was searching for money, but ended up profoundly falling in love with her. “[H]e set out for gold and stumbled upon a dream” (Ornstein 37). Only a few weeks after meeting one another, Gatsby had to leave for war, which led to a separation between the two for nearly five years. As “war-torn lovers” Gatsby and Daisy reach the quintessential ideal of archetypical romance. When Gatsby returned from the war, his goal was to rekindle the relationship he once had with Daisy. In order to do this, he believed he would have to work hard to gain new wealth and a new persona. “Jay Gatsby loses his life even though he makes his millions because they are not the kind of safe, respectable money that echoes in Daisy’s lovely voice” (Ornstein 36). Gatsby then meets Daisy’s cousin, Nick Carraway, who helps to reunite the pair. Finally being brought together after years of separation, Gatsby stops throwing the extravagant parties at his home, and “to preserve [Daisy’s] reputation, [he] empties his mansion of lights and servants” (Ornstein 37). Subsequent to their reconciliation, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, begins to reveal sordid information about Gatsby’s career which causes Daisy to

Daisy has a strong immoral behaviour in the novel. Throughout the novel, it is evident to the reader that there is a moral collapse in her actions. Daisy is driving from the Plaza Hotel after having just broken Gatsby’s heart. On her way back home, “Daisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on” (Fitzgerald 110). In this quote, Daisy recklessly hits Myrtle with her car and is careless of her actions. This shows Daisy’s immorality because instead of stopping to help Myrtle, she drives away out of self preservation. Usually, if a person undergoes these fatal events, they would experience emotional damage. As a result, the individual would strive to change for the better. However, in Daisy’s situation, she does not show any serious emotional reaction to Myrtle’s death. Daisy also shows immoral tendencies towards Gatsby by playing with his feelings and leading him on even though in the end she does not choose him. At the Plaza Hotel, Tom and Gatsby get in a fight over Daisy, and she chooses Tom.

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.

Tom and Daisy’s marriage is full of lies and although their marriage may represent the American Dream on the surface, it lacks morals and commitment. This point is made when Daisy states “Why, how could I love him – possibly? I never loved him” (Fitzgerald 117). This shows the belief that money can lead to happiness was not the case for Tom and Daisy. Fitzgerald also uses materialistic items and the automobile in the collapse of the American dream. Myrtle, Gatsby, and George all die either directly or indirectly because of an automobile. Since Gatsby was the owner of the car that killed Myrtle, he ended up being killed by George. Gatsby admitted that Daisy was driving when he states “You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive – and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way.” (Fitzgerald 126). In this example the automobile is no longer a product or prized possession, but a symbol Fitzgerald uses to accomplish several different

Like Jane, Jay Gatsby lacks the equality needed to rekindle a relationship with the love of his life. However, unlike Jane, Gatsby is already rich and is longing for a true identity with which he can become a prominent figure in society. Gatsby was a Lieutenant stationed at the base near Daisy's home when they started dating and fell in love. Gatsby lied to Daisy and "let her believe that he was a person from much the same strata as herself" (Fitzgerald 156). He told her that he was a wealthy and prestigious man who can take care of her. Gatsby was soon called off to the war and Daisy promised to wait for him. She ends up marrying Tom Buchanan who has a solid social position and the approval of her parents. Since then, Daisy has moved on with her life with Tom in East Egg, but Gatsby's obsession with her has only grown. Nick learns of Gatsby's fixation when Jordan tells him that "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay" (Fitzgerald 83). His fixation with her has caused him to completely change his life to try to be near her. Like Jane Eyre, Gatsby longs for a position of equality with his loved one. When Gatsby was young, he worked on a yacht owned by a wealthy man named Dan Cody. Gatsby immediately fell in love with wealth and luxury, and when Cody died, he

In the Buchanan household, which has been relocated several times to escape the bad publicity wrought by affairs, this kind of behavior is to be expected, showing how even the educated upper class is unable to escape the corruption of America, and what it stands for. The general lack of concern for affairs continues when Gatsby believes that he can turn back the clock and rekindle what he and Daisy once had. Gatsby not only hopes that Daisy will wait for him, but expects it, scoffing at Nick’s assertion that things have changed over time, and that Daisy is now married and a with a child and therefore uninterested in him: “Can’t repeat the past?...Why of course you can!” (116). Gatsby believes that Daisy will be willing to give up what she has for him, building his whole life on the assumption that she will be willing to forget all she has for him. This attitude of indifference for marriage is mimicked in the actions of Tom as well as Myrtle Wilson, showing that it may be widely held. Tom takes advantage of Wilson, replying to Nick’s concerns by simply saying that Mr. Wilson “thinks [Myrtle] goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive” (30). Myrtle’s ability to easily lie to her husband shows that the marital corruption of the upper class is prevalent in the lower classes as well. Fitzgerald uses the diverse characters, from the removed yet decidedly elite character of