Corruption In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Some people may declare money to be the root of all evil, the detrimental problem of society, Scott Fitzgerald would agree that this root has been left to fester and poison society with it’s harvest. In The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals that the ruthless hounding of material wealth destroys people’s moral values and lives through the characters of Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan.

One significant point that Fitzgerald propels is that no one in the story he creates his a morally good person as long as they’re rich. He drives this point by making a veteran who’s been through war, someone who is accredited the title of a hero, into a criminal who will do anything to reach his goal of assuming a large amount of

“You know I love you,” (Fitzgerald 119) were the words that Daisy says to Gatsby after getting into an argument with Tom Buchanan, her husband. She knows Gatsby’s desperate need for her approval, marked by his desperate attempts to be with her, so she toys with Gatsby’s feelings in order to make her husband Tom jealous. She knows she can have various affairs with people like Gatsby because she knows she will always have a blanket of money to fall back on. Her large amount of wealth allows her to do things that aren’t morally acceptable in society such as cheating on a spouse, or manipulating people for her own gain. The power she holds over Gatsby is immense as Gatsby would proclaim to Tom that, "She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!" (Fitzgerald 130). This furthers the point that Daisy is only concerned with her own affairs, she knows that if Tom decides to leave her, Gatsby’s money will always be there to catch her fall. This sense of wealth gives her a realization that she can do whatever she wants, and get away with anything she wants such as being the perpetrator of a murder in a

Immense money will always bring out the worst of people, allowing them to spew thoughts that are dangerous to society, because they have the power to do so without opposition, it allows them to get away with things that no one else could which proves the general corruption of the wealthy. Racism is a prevalent idea throughout the story, mainly revolving around the character of Tom Buchanan, he constantly bombards people with his racist thoughts and how he believes, that the “Dominent Race,” (Fitzgerald 13) need to, “watch out or these other races will have control of things.” (Fitzgerald 13). Tom’s whole life is based around money, and in order to maintain his enormous wealth, he adopts racist principles to disparage other people based on the color of their skin. He adopts these principles because he is very afraid of losing his wealth to competition, so he tries his best to spread his racist ideologies to other people. He is racist because he is a horrible person and wth the underlying cause that he is afraid of losing his monetary value and losing control, proving the moral corruption that money will give people. Tom’s hate for Gatsby orginiates from Gatsby’s love for Daisy, and Tom tries his best throughout The Great Gatsby to turmoil Gatsby’s reputation, and tank Daisy’s potential love for him. When Daisy ends up murdering Myrtle, Tom finds an