Examples Of Deception In The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. On the surface, the book revolves around the concept of romance, the love between two individuals. However, the novel incorporates less of a romantic scope and rather focuses on the theme of the American Dream in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of decline in moral values. The strong desire for luxurious pleasure and money ultimately corrupts the American dream which was originally about individualism. As a result, S. Fitzgerald portrays the corruption during this era by creating a novel infused with lies and deception. The author, S. Fitzgerald drives a basic storyline in which characters, in the novel, compose their identity through lies and deception. Jay …show more content…

Fitzgerald in the novel, uses careless individuals who would destroy everything and everyone and yet still manage to retreat back to their money. Daisy Buchanan, the ‘golden girl’ is rather dishonest and deceitful throughout the novel. As she starts having her affair with Gatsby, she creates unrealistic expectations in Gatsby head about their future together. As Gatsby is having drinks at the Buchanan’s, Tom leaves the room and Daisy kisses Gatsby and declares, ‘I don’t care!’ At this point, the audience realizes that Daisy is and always was in love with Gatsby and that she was prepared to leave Tom. However, in chapter 7, during the confrontation, Daisy quickly rethinks her decisions and states, ‘I did love him once – but I loved you too’. As Gatsby hopes and expectations of them being together breaks the audience starts to comprehend that Daisy contradicting statements is purely because she is afraid to leave Tom. Tom came from a wealthy family and was highly respected in society. Daisy knew that life with him would be luxiourous and entirely satisfactory in terms of respect and wealth. In addition, the author is trying to convey to the audience that Daisy is too secure in her marriage with Tom to even consider leaving it. In the 1920s, women’s role was to usually to leave off their husband’s wealth. They wanted all the materialistic comforts money can provide which lead to lies and deceit through