Mackenzie Evans Ms. Huff Composition 1, Period 8 5 March 2023 Relationships Dissected in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby explores the roaring 20’s, a time of parties, stocks, and the never-ending chase of the American Dream, through the varying relationships of several characters. The narrator, Nick Carraway is a bonds salesman who moves to the West Egg in hopes of finding success in the bustling stock market of New York City. Nick ends up neighboring with the infamous Jay Gatsby, a mysterious man who throws extravagant parties every weekend in hope of finding his long lost love, Daisy Buccanan. Daisy and Tom Buccanan are a married couple living in East Egg with generations of old money supporting their comfortable yet complacent lives. In …show more content…
Tom is characterized as a brute wealthy man who has little care for his wife and all the care in the world for his wealth and status, while Daisy is introduced as a pleasant woman who loves her husband. Daisy previously engages in a passionate relationship with Jay Gatsby before she encounters Tom; however, when Gatsby is shipped off to war, she is left behind with a promise to return to him after he got his life and finances together. Despite their promise, she chooses Tom on account of the comfort that “the crude force of Tom's money” (Person) brings to her lifestyle. It is revealed in the first chapter that Tom is cheating on Daisy through his very obvious disinterest in her. Everyone is painfully aware of Tom’s affair, and he apprises that the reason he and Daisy do not divorce is due to the fact that Daisy is Catholic. On the contrary, the truth is far more superficial. Daisy greatly desires that she is oblivious to Tom’s infidelity. She expresses to Nick when her daughter is born, that she “hope[d] she’[d] be a fool” (20), because it is so difficult being aware of the discrepancy between Tom and herself. Daisy knows that she is not truly in love with Tom, but still she remains …show more content…
At first, Daisy and Gatsby’s affair is displayed as two lovers who have waited years to reconnect with one another. Nevertheless, it is revealed that their relationship is purely based on what the other represents, not their true qualities. For Gatsby, Daisy represents “green light that signals him into the heart of his ultimate vision” (Bewley), his vision being notoriety and success. It is made obvious from the beginning that the “old money” class of East Egg look down upon the likes of Gatsby due to his unsavory methods of acquiring wealth. They also generally look down upon the "new money” class because of their flashiness and almost adolescent nature of spending their freshly earned dollars. Gatsby realizes this, and craves the adoration and respect of the “old money” citizens.While he may feel some of the fondness they had when they were young, Daisy’s status is a significant motive towards his obsession. His chauvinistic gestures of parties and flashy cars are only set to prove to Daisy, and even himself, that he is just as wealthy as the East Egg citizens and should be respected as such. Gatsby verifies that money is the primary factor to his endearment towards Daisy when he remarks that "her voice is full of money" (Fitzgerald 128). With that money comes esteem, which is
During an outing in town, Gatsby confronts Tom hoping that Daisy will leave him and confess her true feelings, however she hesitates and “[realizes] at last what she [is] doing—and as though she [has] never, all along, [any intention in] doing anything at all” (Fitzgerald 132). Gatsby is unable to receive the confession he desires, as Daisy merely views him as an affair rather than a true potential lover. Despite Gatsby’s ambition, Daisy prefers Tom’s inherent wealth and luxury over Gatsby’s own self-made success. Since Tom’s wealth is more financially stable, Daisy is unable to confess any attraction towards Gatsby and risk losing the materialistic value from Tom. After the argument over Daisy’s affection between Gatsby and Tom, Nick Carroway, a mutual friend, observes Tom and Daisy noticing the two share “an unmistakable air of natural intimacy…and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together” (Fitzgerald 145).
During their relationship Daisy becomes further invested in Gatsby due to his wealth, the metaphor displaying Gatsby’s realization of Daisy becoming fixed with the lifestyle of the upper class choosing money over anything else. Although Daisy knows the affair is a corrupt action is overcome by the ideals of wealth and commits adultery. Though Daisy had alternate reasons for beginning a relationship with Gatsby she does develop a love for him throughout the novel. Nevertheless, despite the kinship between the two Daisy decides to stay with her husband Tom at the end of the novel. Although Tom has also committed
The origin of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, dating back to Louisville, is directly rooted in wealth. Gatsby,
Relationships are an important part of a person's development and growth. Choosing the right person is extremely important to ensure a healthy and safe relationship. The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald published in 1925. In the novel, Daisy Buchanan is torn between her husband, Tom, and her former lover, Gatsby. Daisy should choose Tom because he is more successful, stable, and safer than Gatsby.
Although they are in a tempestuous relationship, they tend to always go back to one another, but this is all due to the wrong reasons. It is based on the flaws of the two, Tom’s infidelity and Daisy’s materialism. They are both married to one another only out of their concerns about their image. Tom loves having a both young and beautiful wife that makes him look good. While Daisy likes the wealth and comfortable lifestyle that comes with being married to him.
In the past, Tom is described with, “a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position and Daisy was flattered.” (151). At the time, Tom is a very athletic and charming man who also is very kind to Daisy. In their relationship Tom and Daisy are both high class; but regardless of their high status and great sum of money, their relationship together isn’t very strong as they both cheat on eachother; Daisy with Gatsby and Tom with Myrtle. When Nick meets Tom and Daisy at their estate, he learns that Tom has changed since they first initially met.
Additionally, Gatsby ignored Daisy’s new position as “the busy and the tired,” “overwhelmingly aware of the youth…that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver” (115). Such an observation alludes to the fact that Gatsby was under the impression that money was a preservative for items as well as people, resulting in him continuously pursuing Daisy with an idealized image in his mind of her past
Both Daisy and Gatsby struggle to obtain wealth, often which lead to abusive situations and illegal activity. The characteristics of the time such as obsession and the desire for wealth characterize the situations that many of the characters face in their every day
She has put all these ideas in his head as if they are truly in love and they will be together forever. Daisy´s mind game does not last long due to the truth being revealed. Daisy states ¨Even alone I can´t say, I never loved Tom.. ¨ (Fitzgerald 133).
She became the main reason why he lived such a rich lifestyle. According to Greg Forter’s reviewed work on the article, Gender, Race, and Mourning in American Modernism, Forter expresses how Gatsby gets “disparaged for embodying the very qualities for which he is initially valued.” (460). He explains how Gatsby deceived people, especially Nick, with his lifestyle because Nick realizes that Gatsby’s materialism and money were all for Daisy. Moreover, the theme of money in The Great Gatsby brings great use to materialism.
Daisy treats the one man who truly loved her, Jay Gatsby, in the most horrific way. Not only does she openly admit to loving Gatsby in front of Tom, but she allows Gatsby to believe she will leave Tom for him. This love triangle comes to light when Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy are in the same room and Daisy states her love for both Tom and Gatsby without choosing a side. Daisy states “I did love him once-but I loved you too” (Fitzgerald, 142). She allows Gatsby to believe she will leave Tom for him, yet she doesn’t tell Tom about her feelings towards Gatsby.
Gatsby has spent his whole life trying to prove to Daisy and everyone around him that he is worthy of her. The only way to be on the same social level as her is to turn himself into new money. Since this is not possible, he has to try to convince to others that he truly is old money. To do this, he becomes rich, and lies about his past, but the only way for him to complete this idea is if he is with Daisy. She is the final piece in his American dream.
Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, represents a major theme of the novel, the corruption of the wealthy people in society and how money expresses a person’s feelings and actions. Starting off with Daisy, a woman who shows her corruption in society when she marries Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man, even though she promised to marry gatsby after he came home from war. She is very careless about the ways in which she spends her money and how she acts around people. She doesn’t care that people see that she owns very fancy dresses, fancy cars, and lives in a giant house in East Egg. Gatsby, the main character, is in love with Daisy throughout the novel.
This is evident in her relationship with Tom Buchanan, who represents the traditional patriarchal society limiting Daisy's options. Daisy's actions throughout the novel are a reflection of her struggle to find her place in a society that restricts her from pursuing her desires. She is torn between her love for Jay Gatsby and her desire to maintain her social status. In the end, she chooses to stay with Tom, despite his infidelity and abusive behavior, because it is the socially acceptable
East and West Egg are fictional villages based in Long Island, they are areas of extreme wealth and extravagance. East Egg represents inherited wealth and ‘traditional values’, lives of excess and indulgence as Nick’s description reveals, ‘the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water’. This established enclave was threatened by the West Egg nouveau riche like Gatsby, ‘Mr Nobody from nowhere’ who became staggeringly rich overnight from post war boom and prohibition. The Valley of Ashes is a stark contrast to the conspicuous consumption of both East and West Egg. the contrasting setting of the bleak Valley of the Ashes is filled with the shadowy figures of the dispossessed.