The Great Gatsby Immoral Character Analysis

Through the book we learn that Gatsby is in love with Daisy whom is married to Tom. This is hilarious because to try and impress Daisy he throws these extravagant parties. This becomes even better when you learn that Daisy doesn’t really like the parties in the first place. However, one of the best parts in the book for me is when Gatsby starts using Nick to get closer to Daisy. Which as we all probably know ends horribly for him when Daisy hits and kills Myrtle and he takes the blame as a show of his

Nick knows that Gatsby lies because Gatsby wants people to respect him and he does not want to face the reality that he comes from a poor family. Moreover, Nick knows about Daisy and Gatsby's past relationship and how Gatsby cannot face the reality that Daisy is married to Tom. Gatsby presses Daisy to tell him that she never loved Tom. Gatsby wants to deny the truth and wants to bring back the old days he spent with Daisy.

“She was the first nice girl he had ever known”, is how Jay Gatsby described Daisy. Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin and was once the lover of Gatsby. She is Gatsby’s ideal woman of charm, beauty, wealth, and sophistication. Gatsby “had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person of the same stratum as herself….” However extraordinary as Daisy was thought to be, her riches were paramount to her and her life as Nick describes it, “ She vanished into

Nick’s behavioural changes are one the most evident changes that the reader is able to notice after he is invited to Gatsby’s house. These changes could be regarded as either negative or positive depending on how the reader interprets them. “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”(pg. 59), this is one of Nick’s quote from the beginning of the story before he meets Gatsby, he states that he is very honest to himself and to others but the reader soon finds out that is not the case. Nick is not an honest individual because after Gatsby is accused for Myrtle Wilson’s murder he does not speak up and tell Tom Buchanan and George Wilson (Myrtle’s husband) as to whom committed the crime. This misunderstanding ultimately leads to the death of  Jay Gatsby as he shot my George at his Mansion. These series of events are important to Nick’s behavioural changes as the reader to notice how being in Gatsby’s mansion had affected his honesty. Another behavioural change the reader is able to notice is Nick’s drinking habit as he starts to drink more when he first enters one of Gatsby’s parties. Chapter two of “The Great Gatsby” is where the

Why do we often look up to the higher class? Why do we crave the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy and famous? Murder, cheating, gambling and wild parties are just some examples of what went on in The Great Gatsby. First of all, the rich were also criminals and may have gotten their endless money in illegal matters. Secondly, most all of the rich characters shown throughout the book were unfaithful to his or her spouse. Thirdly, the wealthy were lavishly wasteful and did not seem to care about others. Finally, a character that expresses immorality the most is Tom Buchanan. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, his intentions were for people to learn to know that being rich or the hunger for money can lead to the immoral actions including some

Nick Carraway’s personality allows people to open up to him and put their trust in him. As a character Nick is a great listener and because of that people tend to share their secrets with him. Daisy said, “I’ll tell you a family secret, she whispered enthusiastically” (13). At this point in the story, Nick is just getting to know Daisy and she is already willing to share secrets with him. Daisy shares most of her secrets about either Tom or Gatsby with Nick, because she trusts him.

Nick is an unreliable narrator. He seems, from the beginning, to be level headed and wholly observant. However, he blacks out when he gets drunk, and we lose time. Also, he is deeply embedded and prejudices us against Tom and for Gatsby.

The real contradiction to Nick is The Great Gatsby himself, Jay. Jay and Nick share a similar small town upbringing but Jay was able to parle his stolen trades into the corrupted version of the American Dream. Most of what Nick knows about Jay is based on his reputation and it’s not until they actually meet and Nick sees the “quality of distortion” in Jay’s New York lifestyle that Nick sees for himself the illusion that Jay created. Nick is attracted to the high life that Gatsby has created in the valley of ashes. Who can blame him with all the lavish parties, cars, mansions, women and other temptations. It’s like Fitzgerald has placed Nick in the Garden of Eden and the two characters; Nick and Jay, represent the good

Jordan has had such low moral values for quite some time, which is evident in chapter four. "Daisy said to Jordan Baker...While she was drunk as a monkey, she told Jordan, Here dearis. Take'em back downstairs and give'en to whoever they belong. Tell'em Daisy's changed he mind!" (pg. 79 ln 5) "But the next day she married Tom Buchanan without as so much as a shiver..." (pg. 79 ln 19) It was evident that Daisy and Jordan were both filled with immoral value before Daisy even got married. This later begins to affect Nick as well when Nick later found out from Jordan that Gatsby was once in love with Tom's wife Daisy. This shows how Nick begins to slip because he is now part of the

Nick is still, however, an honest and good man. He is not extravagantly rich, but unlike Gatsby he earned all of his high social connections fairly. He is rather disgusted with the East and it’s empty values by the end of the book. But he is still intrigued by it all, as he demonstrates through his relationship with Jordan Baker. He holds an almost subconscious

The truth is the main opposite of lies. Nick states that he is “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (64). Nick believes that he is telling the truth in this statement, but others make take this the wrong way. In using himself as a testament to his statement, he is setting up the falsehood of himself always being correct. Instead, the story is told through his point of view, where his views are twisted by both love and deceit. The love is expressed through Jordan Baker, while deceit could essentially be expressed through the character of Gatsby. Gatsby lied to Nick about his past, and Nick only found out about Gatsby's past after Gatsby's father came to the funeral and told Nick about how Gatsby's name was really “Jimmy Gatz”, and how Gatsby had “always liked it better down East” (176). This was probably due to Gatsby knowing where Daisy, his long-lost lover, was. For instance, Gatsby knows exactly where Tom and Daisy live because of the green light at the end of the dock. How Gatsby found out, no one knows.

One thing that surprises me about Nick is that he was loyal to Gatsby who seemed likeable enough but empty inside. He seemed like the picture was more important than the real person. Nick was interested in person and would put himself in a bad light to help a friend. “I didn’t want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth a decent stroke

His lies are usually by omission: not telling Daisy about Tom and Myrtle, not telling Tom about Daisy and Gatsby, not telling Gatsby that maybe Daisy isn’t so ready to throw away her comfortable life. Nick lies to keep his friends from pain. Nick wants people to be happy, and Fitzgerald’s choice in Nick’s first words show the decisions the character makes over the

Regarding Gatsby, Nick "had enough of all of them [referring to Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Jordan]"(Fitzgerald 79) and he thought Gatsby was "despicable."(Fitzgerald 79) This is all just after the accident. By the end of the whole story though, Nick's sympathy toward Gatsby improved. He felt terrible that no one paid honor to this man or cared that he was dead.

Nick says "Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her – but I did. I went to New York on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me out of the car," (Fitzgerald 24). Nick is making it sound as if he is being forced to meet Tom's mistress, though he has already agreed to meet her by getting on the train in the first place. Nick is so caught up with the excitement of it all, that he looks past how unethical the situation is. He chooses to not see anything wrong with meeting the woman Tom is having an affair with, because it is not as though he is the one having an affair; he is just a bystander. What he doesn't understand is that he is being just as dishonest as Tom is, because he doesn't saying anything. In his own eyes, Nick considers himself "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known," (Fitzgerald 59). But Nick doesn't realize that being honest is not only, not telling a lie, but it is also telling the truth even when one's not being asked to tell the truth.