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Examples Of Deceit In The Great Gatsby

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The Bonds of Deceit
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character Jay Gatsby is the epitome of what it's like to be deceitful. The Great Gatsby takes place during the roaring 1920’s, On the shallow end it is about a lost love and reliving the past, however, the main theme is much larger. Gatsby embodies two personas, one is the person most know him as, the man living the American Dream of wealth, and his true self, who is quite the rags to riches tale that no one knows the truth of. Gatsby pretends to be someone he is not, this intertwines with the essence of the work as whole by emphasizing the contrast between what is real on the inside and what would appear to be real on the outside.
The dishonesty and deceit in the novel is not apparent from the very beginning, but it is there. Even the title “The Great Gatsby” is dishonest because Jay Gatsby is far from great, and his name is not truly Gatsby. He seems to have an infinite web of lies, with each disclosed lie another is not long after revealed. Although no one truly knows the truth behind Gatsby, …show more content…

The true life background of the infamous Jay Gatsby is not known to most characters, Even Gatsby's web of lies …show more content…

He sees himself as the embodiment of the American Dream, whether that is true or not is unclear, because his entire life is also a lie. It seems like he didn't mind participating in illicit activities and lying his way to the top of it meant he could rewrite the past and write his future as if it were his own personal book that he could change and control as he wishes. The main themes of this novel were deceit and materialism. Deceit develops the theme by contrasting the differences Jay Gatsby goes through in the strive for wealth and his lost love that he’ll never

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Deception plays a large role in the novel, and many characters use it. One character in particular is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby has an outward appearance of being sophisticated and coming from old money. He tells Nick that he inherited money from his wealthy family in the Midwest (65), when in fact he was the son of “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (98). He always tries to validate his wealth and sophistication by throwing opulent parties every weekend and calling everyone “old sport”, but there are cracks in his deceptive mask.

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385 Words | 2 Pages

In the book The Great Gatsby The narrator Nick Carraway says, “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known”(Fitzgerald 59). Nick’s statement is a very broad statement but it is true, basically all of the characters in this book are very dishonest or are just a little dishonest but participate in big lies. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby is full of lies. About all of the characters in the great gatsby are untruthful and dishonest. Everybody around Nick is dishonest, like how Tom is cheating on Daisy with Myrtle, or how Jordan cheated on her first golf tournament, but most of lying is from Gatsby and Daisy.

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Before, Gatsby was an amazing and kind man from New York’s elite, but now Gatsby is a lying and cheating drug

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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.

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456 Words | 2 Pages

he Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates that the immoral living can lead one to loose sight of what is important in life. The characters throughout the novel are filled with infidelities, dishonesty and greed, as the novel progresses they continue to show signs of immoral living. All of them are dishonest, even Nick is dishonest even though he believes “[he is] one of the few honest people that [ he has] ever [known]”(39). He was dishonest when he helped Gatsby met with Daisy.

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Gatsby stirs up drama and acts like he is the innocent one. Jay Gatz is not the man he appears to be, he is a compulsive liar, dishonest, and egotistical Jay Gatz's educational background was an impact in the novel “The Great Gatsby”. He had lied about his education to every making himself seen cool or smart. When he was talking with everyone at the hotel when he said “ it was in nineteen-nineteen.

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Without Gatsby lying about his background, Daisy wouldn’t have seen him in the same light. This theme was what made the story, The Great

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In life, what is perceived tends to show misconception in how thoughts play out. One prime character in the novel is, Jay Gatsby, he was not capable to decide between the love he felt for Daisy and the illusion that he could recapture her love by inventing a false past. Jay believed he could repeat the past. In the novel, Jay Gatsby refuses to establish the differences in the reality of his life and his illusions for his love for Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic: “The Great Gatsby,” displays how deception effects when one falls in love and when one realizes reality.

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561 Words | 3 Pages

The Reason for Deception in The Great Gatsby “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” - Nick Carraway Within the novel The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, acts as a “moral observer” in a book full of lies and deception. Fitzgerald depicts many themes throughout the novel yet the most obvious is that of lying about the truth, as most characters within the novel lie or mislead one another to raise themselves up or for other motivation. Jay Gatsby is the character who is most immersed with his fabrications to make his life sound a little for interesting.

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In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby lives a life of lies and creates an entire fake persona in order to live up to the standards that Daisy, the love of his life, has set for him. James Gatz, a poor farm boy, transforms himself into something he is not, Jay Gatsby, a rich, powerful man, and will do anything to get there. Blinded by his love for Daisy, Jay Gatsby deceives everyone to believe he is a good man who inherited his wealth. In actuality, Gatsby’s entire character is a lie, proving Gatsby cannot come to terms with his past, allowing Fitzgerald to reveal the immorality connected to achieving dreams. Jay Gatsby creates an entirely false image of himself and lets others believe that he is someone else, to impress the girl he loves.

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1016 Words | 5 Pages

If one is honest, they are to be free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere. The quality of being honest is honesty. Although characters in The Great Gatsby are quite sincere, they fall short in the possession of honesty. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which depicts how American life was during the Roaring Twenties.

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The theme of moral decay is best represented by the excessive use of lying by the character Jay Gatsby. Gatsby entire existence is an absolute lie that he created in hopes to make his American dream a reality. Fitzgerald reveals to the reader that Gatsby was not his actual name stating, “James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally his name.”(Fitzgerald98). Gatsby changed his name in hopes that the real him, James Gatz, would have ceased to exist because he

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808 Words | 4 Pages

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that depicts the American Dream; however, the American Dream cannot be established without running over a few people in the process. Gatsby the protagonist of the novel is known to deceive others and himself; however, his lies are not meant to hurt anyone. Gatsby is lost in his desire to be rich and have Daisy’s love, and in his desire forgets about how his actions may harm others. In addition, Gatsby only wanted to be more than his parents who were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (98). Gatsby’s deception goes as far as fabricating who he is, his financial standing in the past; including how he makes his money, lying to Daisy, and allowing others to tell rumors about himself.

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1659 Words | 7 Pages

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.

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1102 Words | 5 Pages

Firstly, the concept of deceit is a universal issue presented in The Great Gatsby. Gatsby is a prime exhibitor of this issue, as he lies about many things. For example, he lies to Daisy when she asks him "I thought you inherited your money" (Fitzgerald, CH 5, Para 97). He replies with “I did, old sport, [...]

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