The Ambiguity of the Great Gatsby Throughout the history of film, people have liked to root for the good guy and wish that the bad guy gets defeated. Good vs. evil has taken many forms over the years: Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Superman and Lex Luthor, Mark Wahlberg and trees. However, many of the best characters have been of the morally ambiguous sort. There are many great examples of morally ambiguous characters, from Walter White to Han Solo. However, moral ambiguity has been a literary fixture longer than it has been a cinematic one. F. Scott Fitzgerald plays with moral ambiguity in his novel The Great Gatsby by writing multiple characters that the reader cannot determine if these characters can be considered good or bad. One of these …show more content…
Gatsby constantly refers to other people as “old sport” and has a cheerful attitude towards everyone he meets. When he first meets Gatsby at the first party Nick goes to, Nick makes observations about Gatsby: He smiled understandingly-- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced-- or seemed to face-- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. …show more content…
At the first party Nick goes to, one of the girls he meets says a rumor about Gatsby: “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once” (48). This immediately brings into question the kind of man Gatsby is. Even though this is a rumor, the fact that it has been spread around shows how these people, most of whom don’t know Gatsby personally, don’t view him as the perfect man that Nick does. Rather, they view him as a mysterious enigma of a man with a cloudy past with potentially morally wrong actions. These judgemental guests even go as far as to question his loyalty to America by claiming he was a German spy during the war. All these claims and rumors and gossip show how people can tell something is up with where Gatsby is on the good and bad spectrum. Nobody is really sure about Gatsby’s background, which makes him morally ambiguous by the fact that his true self is distorted by these rumors and gossip. When Tom and Gatsby argue in the apartment over Daisy, Tom brings up how Gatsby has a shadier side that Nick hadn’t realized: “He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn’t far wrong” (141). This revelation that Gatsby is a bootlegger, which had
Author Melissa Marr once said “Love makes you foolish. It makes you throw every bit of logic away, do stupid things, dangerous things.” Loving a person can make someone lose control of reality and the lines between good and evil become blurred. In the classic American novel, The Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses characters, Jay Gatsby and George Wilson to explore how love can lead people down disastrous paths. Because both men commit heinous criminal acts in the name of the purest emotion, love, both Gatsby and George can be considered morally ambiguous characters.
After Gatsby’s rise to fame and fortune, many of his peers are uncertain on Gatsby’s true past. While attending one of his extravagant parties, Nick learns of various rumors regarding his past: “‘Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once’ [...] ‘it’s more that he was a German spy during the war’“(Fitzgerald 42). The people at Gatsby’s parties know little of his origins, which causes many people to envision Gatsby’s journey to luxury in various ways. There are some people who believe that Gatsby murdered a man, whereas others think he was a German spy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald has a way of applying indirect characterization into his novels in order to enhance how he would like a character to be interpreted, especially in his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. Take for example, two major characters in the story, Nick Carraway of Minnesota who moved to New York in order to get into the bond business and Tom Buchanan a wealthy man living in East Egg with his wife Daisy. It is evident that Fitzgerald would want readers to look at Nick as an honest man and a bystander or observer of the world going on around him. On the other hand, Fitzgerald wants readers to see Tom as an arrogant, hypocritical brute with no morals whatsoever.
The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. On the surface, the book revolves around the concept of romance, the love between two individuals. However, the novel incorporates less of a romantic scope and rather focuses on the theme of the American Dream in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of decline in moral values. The strong desire for luxurious pleasure and money ultimately corrupts the American dream which was originally about individualism.
Skylar Placek Ms. Anderson English III Honors 8 March 2023 The Great Gatsby Essay Throughout the novel, “The Great Gatsby”, the character Jay Gatsby puts on a false front on many occasions. He continuously tries to deceive many of the characters in the book and lies about numerous things. These fabrications of his brought about many negative repercussions and even resulted in his own death.
In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby, a man of high wealth in the 1920’s, is constantly questioned about his wealth and the means by which he attained it. Rumors are often spread regarding Gatsby and his wealth, however he never attempts to stop or correct them. This leads to the reader questioning if Gatsby is really telling the truth about his former life or if he is trying to hide something. Gatsby’s mysterious origins help to shape both his character and the relationships he has.
Nick thinks of Gatsby of making people feel like they are important. As said in the book "Gatsby`s smile made someone feel as if they were the most important person in the world", meaning that Gatsby would always give you all his attention when he talked. This also gave other people reasons to believe that he was lying. These rumors that
The novel Great Gatsby is a story that has literally been written off of dishonesty and misconception. Without the repetitive theme of lying and deception the book would simply not even exist. It is evident to see that in many aspects and characters of the book lying and deception plays an important role. This theme is truly weapon in self defense which builds
Evidence of this can be found at the end of the story in both novel and film when Nick becomes overwhelmed and surprised with the outcome of Gatsby’s fate and how disgusted he is with people, that
The Great gatsby is the story of several characters who try to accomplish the American dream and live a carefree lifestyle. Three characters who embody this movent are Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy. The live through illusions to escape their realities and try to impress one another with their riches, or devotion to each other. Fitzgerald uses these characters to represent some of the real life illusion of the time such as gender equality, achieving american dream through climbing the social ladder, and returning to a moral code like laws of prohibition. II.
Characters throughout The Great Gatsby present themselves with mysterious and questionable morals. Affairs, dishonest morals, criminal professions, weak boundaries and hypocritical views are all examples of immorality portrayed in The Great Gatsby. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, lies and mischief fill the lives of many and significantly damage numerous relationships. First, Jay Gatsby's whole life is consumed into a massive lie. His personality traits set him apart from others and the attention he accumulates motivates him to falsely portray his life.
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates a morally ambiguous character that can’t be defined as strictly good or evil. Moral ambiguity is the driving force towards Gatsby’s actions. The character Gatsby demonstrates morally ambiguous qualities that initiate plot throughout the whole novel. Morally ambiguous choices can be viewed towards Gatsby’s character throughout the novel. The first glimpse of Gatsby is introduced in the first chapter while Nick is “exempting him from his reaction” of a “uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever” already placing Gatsby in a position of moral ambiguity (Fitzgerald 2).
Through dialogue we find out that he is a great liar and has basically everyone convinced that he went to Oxford and inherited his money. As for Gatsby’s morals, he obviously doesn’t have very good morals if he’s a bootlegger and is affiliated with gangsters. By chapter six Nick seems to be Gatsby’s best friend almost. Gatsby tells everything to Nick and is always going to him for help. At the beginning of chapter 1, one of the first things that Nick tells us is that he’s not a very judgemental person but throughout chapter six that’s almost all he does.
Many urban areas around the United States saw the rise of the first gay clubs in the mid 1920s. It was the first time in which the idea of non-heterosexual feeling were beginning to be accepted by a reasonable portion of the American populous. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was set in an urban environment in 1920s. It follows the main character, Nick Carraway and the experiences he had with a man named Gatsby. There is a mountain of evidence throughout this book that supports the idea that Nick does not just like Gatsby, but in fact is in love with him.
In the words of William Shakespeare, “A reliable narrator, by any other name...”-or at least it went something like that. Despite being identified as Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, he could have been named Ishmael or Huck Finn, and the following would have remained true: Nick is a reliable narrator. A reliable narrator does not have to be completely honest, but should be able to accurately convey the overall message of the story and assist the reader in understanding the bigger picture by remaining impartial. Fitzgerald’s decision to have Nick as the narrator, Nick’s character development, and his ability to remain neutral exemplifies how Nick is a reliable narrator. Nick’s reliability as a narrator is due to his