Great Gatsby Essay, Research Paper

Characters in books can reveal the author feeling toward the world. In The

Great Gatsby Fitzgerald suggested the moral decline of the period in

America history through the interpersonal relationships among his

characters. The book indicates the worthlessness of materialism, the

futile quest of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America’s moral values had

diminished. Despite his newly acquired fortune, Gatsby’s monitory means

could not afford his only true wish, therefore he cannot buy everything

which is important to Daisy. (Fitzgerald, -page 42) What you wish for is

not always what you want or not all that glitters is gold. The wild

lavishness of Gatsby’s parties and the shallowness and purposelessness of

the lives of the guests all kills Gatsby on the inside. All Gatsby wants

when he chooses to be rich is to get Daisy. Daisy, who is wealthy and

beautiful, symbolizes a way of life which is remote from Gatsby’s and

therefore more attractive because it is out of reach so he changes

himself. (Fitzgerald, -page 54) Myrtle and Gatsby both want to be part of

the same elite crowd. They play a reflection of each other in the book by

wanting the same thing but they have different methods of achieving it.

Gatsby wants Daisy, and Myrtle just wants to be higher in society. Gatsby

plays the god-like character in this book so his means are good but both

him and Myrtle do bad things to get higher in a crowd that will never take

them in. To make themselves appear better to the other crowd, they lose

some of the moral fiber that was there to begin with. (Fitzgerald, -page

83) Loss of morals in the 1920′ in America caused the American dream to

vanish. The god-like character of the book was a good person but he did

bad things like bootlegging and joining in organized crime. Affairs

happened in the elite crowd between Tom and Myrtle. Dishonesty reared its

ugly head when Daisy killed Myrtle by running her over then blaming it on

Gatsby. This causes the deaths of three people. (Fitzgerald, -page 100)

In summary Gatsby struggle to gain acceptance among his social class and

failed. He could not achieve the American dream or reach his dream for his

true love. He changed him self into saying stuff like “old sport” and

other stuff to make him be into impure. The complicated struggle for class

distinction continued as his life was wasted. (Fitzgerald, -page 122)