Examples Of Decent In The Great Gatsby

Decency. The truth of the matter is that for every single individual is yet another definition and answer to the question, “what does it mean to be decent?” amounting to a seemingly indefinite response. So just what does it mean to be decent? In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald implicates that within each person, lays another definition of being “decent”. In every novel there are good guys and bad guys, or in this instance, those whom are decent and those who are not, and Gatsby is no exception. Concerning indecency there is a wide variety of case examples to select from. Undoubtedly the most apparent exemplification is that of Tom Buchannan. Tom, a large brute as implied in the quote “…he was a sturdy, straw-haired man

It can be argued that Gatsby, our hopeless romantic is a decent character. Jay went to extraordinary means to win back his girl Daisy “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay." (78) He is also an extremely charitable character even offering Nick a job “Well, this would interest you. It wouldn’t take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.” (83) This just goes to show that Gatsby really does put others in front of himself, or does it? Beginning to think on it we come to realize that these generous offers may be considered selfish, as in the end it only benefits himself. Nick Caraway, our narrator, should not be left out of the mix in accordance to defining decent characters. He states that “Every one 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.” (59). But as with Gatsby, Nick leads a false sense of selflessness as proven by his earlier statement “…frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon.” (1) So Nick, our self-proclaimed unbiased and honest narrator partakes in seemingly dishonest acts? Suddenly it appears that our pool of truly “decent” characters is rather

As you, the reader, have begun to notice, there is very rarely a decent act performed by any of our characters, none the less a decent character present at all. F. Scott Fitzgerald presents to us a situation in which none of his characters are morally descent, and what is the cause? A hit and run murder, a homicide, and a suicide. Talk about a happy ending. It is self-evident that for one to be considered decent human being to put forth, in their mind, all others before them. Being of a humble manner, coupled with other well developed character traits, among them honesty and kindness, as well as being armed with a sharp sense of empathy is what entitles one to be decent. These are rather polar opposites to each of Fitzgerald’s characters, a clear warning to steer clear the practices undertaken by these foolish personas to avoid a miserable and possibly tragic fate, as implied when Nick speaks of Daisy and Tom “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”