Carelessness In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

When you are rich enough you can afford anything, even carelessness. You can afford to throw caution to the wind, and not think about the consequences of your actions. This is the subliminal theme to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, where luxury, and misery, and misfortune all have a common factor of carelessness. I also believe that carelessness is not the only perpetrator and is also followed closely by selfishness throughout the story. Jay Gatsby devotes the last years of his life to obtaining Daisy Buchanan, his former lover. Despite his grand efforts, his character lacks morality, accountability and responsibility, all which are underlined by carelessness because he is blinded by his tunnel vision for Daisy, and will use any means

In carelessly pursuing this dream of his, he ceases to realize the damage he is causing to the other characters and it ultimately leads to his demise. Next, Jordan and Daisy provide a good example of this theme, and even in the beginning of the book Nick takes notice of this, and confronts Jordan about her driving habits. “You're a rotten driver...Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn't to drive at all." And to this, she says it doesn’t matter if she’s careless, so long as everyone else gets out of her way. This scene alone shows the ignorant and careless mindset that the characters have. Daisy shows this in quite a few ways, from her smoking and drinking habits, to her willingness to entertain Gatsby for fun while cheating on her husband. During the intervention that occurs in the climax (chapter 7) Daisy reveals that she loves both Gatsby and Tom, and is careless to that fact that she is simultaneously hurting them both. Later that night, by driving recklessly to “clear her head” she strikes and kills someone on the road and then retreats into the safety of her home that very same night, not having to face any