The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Gatsby’s mission to attain wealth, power, and status he loses sight of his morals through his “dealings” with various shady people that are rumored to be lucrative and illegal. The extent of Gatsby’s criminal activities is confirmed by Tom Buchanan one hot summer night when Tom shares that Gatsby and “Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores…and sold grain alcohol over the counter,” (133) an illegal venture during prohibition. In addition to Gatsby’s business investments, his obsession with winning Daisy clouds his mind with thoughts of inspiring her to leave her husband and abandoned her child. Nick believes Gatsby would “want nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you,’” (109) and prove her marriage was a sham.

In the beginning of this novel everyone seems to know, or at least have heard, about Gatsby. He is talked about a lot and it is manly in a good way. Gatsby appears to be a very powerful person who also has a lot of respect from people. He has a very strange and kind of mysterious personality. For example when he has his party’s, usually on

If a generous, caring, optimistic, person has a few bad characteristic traits, does that make them a bad person? Do minor evil personalities and actions overpower kind ones? The Great Gatsby, a novel written by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, is the narrative of Nick Carraway’s more than interesting experience in New York. Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s second cousin once removed, lives on East Egg, which is across the Valley of Ashes from Nick’s neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Nick gets to know Jay throughout the story and begins to realize Mr. Gatsby has reinvented himself to satisfy Daisy. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby remains true to his dear friends, his true love, and his dreams.

Jay Gatsby exhibits morally ambiguous qualities in many different ways, one example is his use of questionable means to achieve wealth. Even Tom is able to sees that Gatsby “must have strained himself to get [his] menagerie together” (Fitzgerald 103). The wealth Gatsby amasses for himself comes mostly by illegal means, compromising his innocence without turning him completely corrupt. Since the reasons behind his criminal activity seem to be logical and right to Gatsby, and he is driven clearly by an unconquerable love, the wrongness of his actions is almost overlooked. The degree of his crime is severely reduced in the eyes of Nick and even Daisy,

Although Pauly’s is an interesting point, he fails to exhibit sufficient valid evidence to prove his original thesis; only vague speculations are provided to substantiate his theorizing. It is, indeed, obvious that throughout the novel, Gatsby is involved in criminal activities; however, there is little proof to show that he is a “sinister gangster,” as Pauly believes him to be. Meyer Wolfshiem, in fact, once refers to Gatsby as nothing more than a gentlemanly, charming tool which he employed for his own uses (179); even those closest to Gatsby do not think him to be any kind of mastermind. Gatsby was not a cunning criminal mastermind; his illegal actions were simply the only avenue within his knowledge that would bring him wealth, which he would need in order to win Daisy’s heart. On the contrary, Gatsby was not particularly cunning in anything, least of all that to which he devoted his life—Love.

To begin with, the movie is narrated through the character Nick Carraway’s eyes. In his opinion, Jay Gatsby is at first very mysterious, charming, and noble, even though Gatsby’s multiple identities are suspicious. After knowing Gatsby, Nick realizes that Gatsby is just bragging and fabricating about his multiple identities and in fact gains all the fortune from illegal activities. In reality, Gatsby came from a poor family and ran away since he believes that “he is chosen by god” and could eventually achieve success, power, and wealth (Luhrmann, 2013). In the movie, he achieved wealth after involving in criminal bootlegging, but eventually died for the girl called Daisy who he has loved since he was still young and poor.

Gatsby’s idealistic views impact his character in many ways. One main side effect of Gatsby’s desire is his dishonesty. As a result of all the goals he has set for himself in his life, Gatsby becomes dishonest and cunning. Originally, Gatsby seems to have been a righteous but ambitious young man, as shown through his daily routine. Once he realizes that he is not able to accomplish his goals by having good habits, hard work, and good

Gatsby was a man who was in many ways preyed on because of his success. The novel says, “No—Gatsby turned out alright at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” Despite some questionable business

However Gatsby all throughout the book is shown to be nothing but nice. He has never caused any real trouble that would make him be a bad guy. In chapter 4 on page 69 the reader learns that gatsby is connected to a man named Mr. Wolfsheim who is the shady underground mob boss of the book and also is the way Gatsby makes his big bucks. Even though Gatsby is connected to this man doesn't mean Gatsby himself is a bad person. The good deeds that gatsby does because of his wealth definitely outweighs the way he gets the

To accomplish his one main goal, Gatsby would do anything to make money, so he did it illegally. Gatsby is a very rich man, but he did not earn his money the way that most of America did. “[Gatsby] differs from the other newly rich members of society in that he did not earn his money in an honorable way.” Gatsby made his money out of illegal bonds and bootlegging. Bootlegging is when one illegally sells alcohol under-the-counter, at a time where alcohol is banned. His main goal left in life is to win back Daisy Buchanan, and to accomplish that he needed money. All that he could do was to get into illegal business, which at that time in his life, was the only easy way to get wealthy fast. Gatsby could not wait any longer to reunite with the girl he had thought about every day since he had left to fight in World War I.

First, his business was illegal. To achieve his goal, Gatsby has lied to everyone. Nevertheless, everyone knew him as a high status person. It is no longer a characteristic of a tragic hero. The tragic hero can be said to be of high social status. However, Gatsby came from a lower class. He also chases a married woman. If we look at him as a good side, we will see him as a brave man who tries the best he can to achieve his goal. However, if we look at him as a bad side, he is the one who tries to break a happy family. Even though Daisy’s married to Tom, Jay buys a mansion close to her house, holds lavish parties so that she’ll pay attention to them and may be even come herself. He is trying to win the heart of another man’s wife. Gatsby hopelessly falls in love with a money-loving woman. That leads to his downfall. He loses everything, even death. He is foolish because he believes that he can repeat the past or erase his

Gatsby came from nothing and being a poor person which had a part in his motivation. All of his shallow behavior and materialism was in his struggle to reinvent himself and win the heart of Daisy Buchanan. To Gatsby Daisy represents money and eminence and he fell in love with her without knowing what complications she would cause him. After many years from their first interaction Daisy grew tired of waiting for Gatsby to reunite with her and she ended up marrying a man from old money, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby was a good man even though he lied numerous times about his past and attempted in stealing another man’s wife. Gatsby just craved the challenge that he got with other men for Daisy’s love and we learns this on Page 141 in his conversation with her:

Gatsby’s downfall was closely related to how he had earned all of his money and how he used it. The way he earned it was described by Tom (141), that he is a bootlegger who sells powdered alcohol with Wolfshiem. This information shows us how Gatsby wanted to keep himself mysterious, but in the end it is easy to see how he is a lowlife who takes part in crimes. Knowing that he takes part in crimes helps us understand that everyone else around him are going to treat him differently, because they won’t see him

The first way that Fitzgerald shows Gatsby as a sinister gangster is by making him similar to the gangsters of that era. Instead of grimy thugs the wealthy criminals of Gatsby time were just like him: rich, powerful, and affluent. (1) We see this when Gatsby goes to meet Meyer Wolfshiem. Wolfshiem is described as a “gambler” and “The man who fixed the 1919 World Series” but he has still managed to evade incarceration. Nick was surprised that just one man could “play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe” not even considering the fact that he never went to jail for it. Another example stems from Tom’s investigation of Gatsby. Tom finds out that Gatsby was affiliated with Wolfshiem’s scheme

Here’s the thing about stories; they’re all different, but they’re all the same. Now, everyone knows how they’re different. Different letters make up different words which make up different sentences. It’s this difference that allows for multiple stories to be told. The other side of stories is much less understood. They’re all the same. This can be seen through the examination of archetypes, most importantly the hero vs the villain. It can be seen in every tale imaginable. Every batman has a joker, Luke will always face Darth Vader, and the mailman and dog will wage war to the end of time. It is by examining stories through these archetypes that it becomes easier to see their similarities. When it comes to The Great Gatsby, however, things become much more complicated. The story, complete with layers of deception, lust, and corruption blurs the traditional archetypes that a reader looks for in a story. When the individual qualities of the characters are examined, however, their roles can become much clearer. Through his obsession, his false identity, and his selfish attitude Jay Gatsby is the villain of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.