Behavior Depicted In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the 1920’s, the wealthy and poor lost sight of their morals. In the book, The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, used the characters of his novel to portray this immoral behavior of the “haves” and “have nots” during the 1920’s. This inappropriate behavior caused the characters to be involved in questionable situations. This included affairs, lack of manners and confusing their financial status as power. These occurred in relationships between the upper class men and other upper class men in the West and East Egg of New York and the upper class men with the lower class men in the Valley of Ashes. In the 1920’s, because of the superior personalities of the “haves”, they participated in disturbing events, which were overlooked

Many of the characters in the book, The Great Gatsby, were involved in this heinous act of disrespecting their spouses, such as Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. One afternoon on a train ride to New York City, Tom said to Nick, “ ‘We’re getting off’, he insisted. ‘I want you to meet my girl.”(24). When wanting to introduce his mistress to Nick, Tom requested his desire in a nonchalant manner. He treated the situation as if it was normal and appropriate to cheat on your sprouse. Many affairs weren’t common in the Valley of Ashes, however, Myrtle Wilson, the wife of a proprietor of a car garage, was sexually involved with Tom Buchanan. When she met him she was overwhelmed with joy by his confident personality and wealth. Many, including Catherine, Myrtle’s sister described both, Tom and Myrtle’s marriages in a negative way. Catherine explained to Nick, “She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. ‘What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them?” (33). Tom and Myrtle act sincere towards their spouses, but openly disrespect them by making their affair known to others. By disregarding the immoral part of having an affair, Tom and Myrtle lack common social ethics because of Tom’s selfish needs and Myrtle’s amazement and need for

They assumed their money came with a certain disgustedly confident personality, and they could use it to do unspeakable things. Gatsby was known for his wealth in New York because of his luxurious life and parties; He was aware of this. One day he was driving with Nick Carraway and they got pulled over by the police. As the police approached the car, Gatsby pulled out a certain white card and gave it to the cop. The cop reacted and responded, “ Know you, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse me!” ‘What was that?’I inquired. ‘The picture of Oxford?’ ‘I was able to do the commissioner a favor once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year.” (68). Gatsby used the leverage he had on the police commissioner and his powerful appearance to manipulate the police into forgetting about the ticket. Gatsby assumed his known name would help him in life , but this assumption didn’t help with retrieving Daisy. In the beginning of their relationship, Gatsby meant Daisy as a middle class military man, but Daisy’s future intentions were to marry a wealthy man, which she did. After Gatsby became wealthy, he used his money to lure Daisy to him and captive her with his wealth. Gatsby threw tons of extravagant parties and Nick and Jordan noticed. They said to each other, “He wants her to see his house,’ she explained. ‘And your house is right next door.’... ‘I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,’