Why Is The Great Gatsby Bad

In the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby built up his wealth hoping he could win Daisy back. Daisy who was in love with Gatsby, married a man name Tom for "old money". Nick becomes friends with Gatsby and is Daisy's cousin. There is "a lot that is realistic in The Great Gatsby" but there is "also a strain of counter-realism.” (YaleCourses). Throughout the novel we find that all three characters are untrue with themselves and none possess true identities. This lack of authenticity in the characters is what leads to their downfalls.

In the book “The Great Gatsby”, Nick has a front row seat to a horrific love circle. Tom and Nick are different in many ways. Tom is portrayed in the story as an antagonist, while Nick is a protagonist. Both of these characters have encounters with Gatsby’s lover Daisy. The story of a distressed lovers drags a newcomer of the city into their feuds.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is filled with many characters with different personalities. Jay Gatsby one of the main characters, though mysterious, he is determined to live his “American Dream”. The relationship Gatsby has with Daisy also affects the way he is. There are many different layers to Gatsby, and as we learn more about him everything starts to make more sense and fall into place. Jay Gatsby is portrayed as a mysterious figure in the beginning of the novel.

A villain is also called the antagonist—defined as one who contends with or opposes another in a fight, conflict, or battle of wills. The true villains held within the pages between the two covers of The Great Gatsby could be classified as anyone and everyone. I believe the three main ones throughout the story, though, are Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan; they’ve hurt so many people. Some on purpose, some unconsciously were hurt. Jay Gatsby could be known as the most villainous, but to himself.

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

“the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired”(Fitzgerald). From this Nick puts Gatsby as a pursuer and Daisy as the pursued. Nick is essentially stereotyping people with four niche stereotypes that are accurate for very few people. Nick tells gatsby “You’re acting like a little boy” and that Gatsby was being rude. Nick rarely tells people what he thinks of them and their actions. It was a rather condescending statement towards Gatsby, who was already embarrassed.(Fitzgerald 88). One of the few times Nick tells people how he feels about something it’s negative. Throughout the story Nick never tells Daisy about Tom’s affair and Never tells Tom about Daisy’s. Nick also could have told Mr.Wilson from being surprised. If either Tom or Daisy knew they would have divorced ending horribly dishonest relationship. This would have benefited everyone. Mr.Wilson knew that if he did not go west his wife would leave him, but if he knew before he could have either ended the affair or his marriage. If he had told anyone instead of standing by and doing

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 Great Gatsby has many characters all whom are terrible people. All the characters in the book make terrible choices, and all have awful morals.

These characters live in the age of the “Hollow Men,” and are portrayed as empty and absent-minded people. In fact, Nick voices his grievances with this at the end of the story; after Nick meets Tom Buchanan a couple months following Gatsby’s death, he takes time to reflect, pondering, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” (179). Shaking Tom’s hand, he states that he feels like he “were talking to a child” (179). Nick feels a personal disdain for the carelessness of the characters in the book. Gatsby, however, acts with real thoughtfulness, as he exhibits his authenticity multiple times in the novel. Reflecting on Gatsby’s life, Nick proclaims that Gatsby’s heart “was in a constant, turbulent riot” (99). He then tells that “the most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted [Gatsby] in his bed at night” (99). These examples help validate that Gatsby, unlike the other characters, was genuine enough to feel passionate and convey emotion. While the readers dislike Tom and Daisy’s emptiness, they favor Gatsby’s compassionate and sincere personality, as they can relate to his

In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway gradually grows annoyance with Daisy and Tom Buchanan and their selfish and luxurious life. Daisy, on the other hand finds Nick to be her “trustworthy genuine cousin”. Tom thinks of Nick as his old friend from college who is always there for him; however fraudulence lies between all of them. Thus, representing how each of the characters perceived their friendship differently. To begin, throughout the book Nick grows to become more and more disgusted with the actions Daisy and Tom fulfill; especially towards people. Nick represents this when he says, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them

However, Gatsby’s life is ultimately taken away due to his burning desire for hope. His naivety in re-creating the ‘love’ he had with Daisy causes him to become a victim of his own wrong doing, the lies and the wealth all catch up to him in the end.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is seen as a mysterious character that’s not called great or bad. The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920’s during the “roaring twenties” or called as the “Jazz Age”, a period ending the Great Depression and an era where jazz and dancing become trendy. Gatsby does not seem to be fit to be called “great”, instead he is fit for being called a determined man. Some may not call Gatsby “great” because of his lies and some will call him “great” because he is a man who is determined to get Daisy back from Tom or because Gatsby is a nice man who does not have much ignorance like Tom. An example why Gatsby do not deserve to be called a “great” man is because he is a liar and a “great” man does not

Gatsby does well in the war and he then tries to go back to Daisy but is unable to and is sent to Oxford instead. When he comes back, he is absolutely broke and then he tries to find a job. He shows his selfishness again when he tries to get money. Gatsby meets Meyer Wolfshiem while searching for a job. He ends up getting involved in some shady, illegal business and becomes a bootlegger. Gatsby was so adamant in getting money and rising up in society that he was willing to do whatever it took to get money. His greed and selfishness led him to do illegal things that he shouldn’t have been doing. Gatsby ends up buying a house across from Daisy where he was hoping to reconnect with her again. He again shows his selfishness by wanting to reconnect and rekindle his love with her even though she is already married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is clearly taken and Gatsby wants her to leave Tom and go away with him since now Gatsby isn’t poor and can provide for her. Even now, he still selfishly hides the truth by lying about his education and not telling the truth about the source of his wealth. He even confronts Tom about his love for her saying “she never loved you. She loves me.” (Fitzgerald 137) Gatsby’s selfishness ends up costing him his life at the very end. He does end up showing some selflessness by taking the blame for the accident even though Daisy was the one driving.

Nick is the narrative reader in The Great Gatsby. Gatz was a poor person that changes his name to Gatsby. Tom was a cheater and was unfaithful to Daisy. Daisy was a flirt and rich. Myrtle is a poor women that lived over her and her husband’s garage shop. Myrtle would let Tom push her around because he was a rich man that would let Myrtle forget that she was poor.

All through the book, Gatsby's mind is stuck on getting Daisy back. He thinks that in one magical moment, Daisy will leave Tom and return to his bed for a fairy tale ending. After he comes back from the war his thoughts are on his love's betrayal, her marriage. He sees his actions as a method of love, but his thoughts are ill hearted towards others. He has been involved in illegal financial methods and is trying to break up a marriage for his own gain in life. After their fling officially begins, Gatsby has Daisy lying to Tom and he is convincing her that she never loved her husband. Gatsby thinks that by getting Daisy to realize her marital mistakes, she will simply leave Tom and marry him.  He is corrupting a relationship and an individual further than their present state of dishonesty. He thinks that his plans are going accordingly until a heated discussion breaks out and he is on the losing end. He has ended up emotionally unbalancing Daisy to the point where she accidentally kills someone. Gatsby then takes the blame like it was nothing with the thought that it is his duty. Gatsby's train of thought was a bit off the tracks and did crash and burn, but who could blame a man in love,