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. This dishonestly not only to overs, but also to oneself helps bring light to the truth about each character's inner struggle. At the beginning of the novel not much is known about Jay Gatsby other than rumors made by others. There were speculations on where his money came from and that “He killed a man once” … “He must be a German spy during the war” … “He was in the Army”. The fact that Jay does little himself to try to clear up these rumors is a form of deception in its
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Jay states that he is the son of a wealthy family in the Midwest, which implies that he came from old money along with other stories of a trip to Europe and such. The way Fitzgerald writes this section makes is clear that Jay’s stories may not be the most credible, which is more obvious to the reader than so the characters, forming a sort of dramatic irony over the piece. When it is later discovered that Gatsby obtain his money through bootlegging and other illicit means, It raises the question of why he would lie in the first place. The answer is that Jay is ashamed of his actions that lead him to his prosperous life. He then chooses to lie to others and most importantly to