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How Does Daisy Corrupted In The Great Gatsby

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TGG Essay

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald offered commentaries surrounding a number of different themes - morality, wealth, betrayal, and power. But the theme that surrounded and followed the book’s title character - Jay Gatsby from his beginning to his downfall, is no other than the American Dream. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s ultimate fate reflects the declining state of the American Dream in the 20s, which is becoming increasingly materialistic and corrupted.
Jay Gatsby perceives material wealth as the gateway to joining the echelons of the “old riches”, and the key to win back the heart of Daisy. In pursuit of his American Dream, Gatsby hosted extravagant parties and invested heavily in his relationships with the “old riches.” He pays great attention …show more content…

Daisy has always wanted happiness, and it seems she has obtained that happiness when she married Tom Buchanan. However, as the novel progresses, it becomes incrementally apparent that Tom and Daisy’s relationship is not ideal, but in fact far from it. Tom tends to be abusive towards Daisy and cares very little about her. “She never questioned that he (Tom) is a wealthy WASP” (Schreier), and Daisy thought she gained everything by marrying Tom; wealth, love and happiness which are all parts of the American Dream. However, when Daisy is reunited with her old love, Gatsby, she had a sudden epiphany. “They’re such beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.” (Fitzgerald, 89) At this moment she breaks down, for she had realized she had married money, not love. She also realized that instead of marrying Tom for money, she could have married Gatsby for both love and money. The once perfect Tom in her eyes is no longer the ideal man, and Daisy’s chase for her American Dream ended only in regret and

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A novel that comments on society and the choices people make within it, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald makes a compelling story laced with deceit, hope, and the unattainable. Fitzgerald paints many colorful characters within this novel, but Daisy Buchanan seems to always be in the spotlight. Daisy searches for wealth and love, but finds them in two different men. Daisy Buchanan deceives the men in her life searching for her goal of having “everything” showing that this grail quest is doomed to fail.

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Daisy was torn between love and wealth when she had to choose between waiting for Gatsby or marrying Tom. After receiving a letter from Gatsby, “She wouldn’t let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow [...] Next day at five o’clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months’ trip to the South Seas” (Fitzgerald 81). Daisy was emotionally torn between her decision, but ultimately she decided to go with the man who will provide for her the most.

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Gatsby’s condition for living a happy marriage with Daisy for the rest of their life is more than her leaving Tom, he wants Daisy to tell Tom that “I never loved you”. In a hotel, Daisy and Gatsby confront Tom, and she says she never actually loved Tom, but when Tom reminded her of the good memories they had together, she said, ““Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now — [is not] that enough?””(Fitzgerald 102). While trying to fulfill the expectations of Gatsby, erasing a man she has been married to for four years, she feels overwhelmed.

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Some may argue that the most corrupt character in The Great Gatsby is the infamous Jay Gatsby himself. However, there are many instances that prove it to be none other than his female obsession, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is naturally a materialistic, selfish, and manipulative person, and unfortunately, Gatsby has fallen prey to her devious antics. She had been raised with a set of beliefs declaring that money and material items were the most important things in life. And those beliefs were what motivated her to leave Gatsby for Tom in the first place.

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The American Dream Portrayed in the Great Gatsby In the Great Gatsby, a historical fictional novel created by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character and subject of the book Jay Gatsby has gone from rags to riches. However, his peers, who have equally as much money as Gatsby himself reject him, because his wealth is acquired, not handed down. Through his decision to set the Great Gatsby in the roaring 20’s, where wealth hit an all time high, the author highlights the theme that the American Dream is an achievable accomplishment, despite how high one must rise to get there, despite the underlying mess that is often present.

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Symbolizing Gatsby’s love for Daisy, he throws these parties only for his unquenchable need for her compassion. Although Gatsby grew up having nothing, once he met Daisy, his only goal was to impress her and change everything in his life to accommodate for her needs. Daisy, on the other hand, sees how wealthy Gatsby was and every little item he has that represents wealth. When she walks into Gatsby’s bedroom and sees all of his shirts, “it makes [her] sad because [she’s] never seen such — such beautiful shirts before" (Fitzgerald 92). Daisy’s only desire in life is that she is wealthy, so she will do whatever possible to achieve that.

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Characters can be used as symbols to highlight an idea. Daisy is one such character. Fitzgerald uses of Daisy to zero in on the moral corruption of the characters. Daisy she is described as "a silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans"(115). White is a colour normally associated with purity and innocence.

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‘it was just personal’” (Fitzgerald 152). When Daisy first went to Gatsby’s house she cries as Gatsby throws his expensive shirts on to the ground because “they're such beautiful shirts”(Fitzgerald 92).This is ironic because the only reason Daisy regretted marrying Tom was when she had seen how wealthy Gatsby had become. Gatsby doesn’t realize this because he is so deluded by his false reality, where he believes that “Daisy’s love is only for him, and it cannot

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When it was time for Daisy to move on in her life she would need someone to take care of her and to pay for her expenses, since Gatsby wasn’t actually rich and only acted to be she left him, setting the story in motion, and soon after she found Tom. Tom seemed to be the perfect match for Daisy because he was exactly what she desired, Rich, “Tom Buchanan is wealth brutalized by selfishness and arrogance… that is why Daisy chose him” (Taylor 6). But when reunited with a much wealthier Gatsby, she grows closer to him like before and finally decides that she should leave Tom for him. Like before how Gatsby fell in love with Daisy’s wealth, Daisy fell in love with the wealth that Gatsby represents, “Daisy does not like Gatsby for himself, but for the superficial illusion he represented” (Fredrick 4).

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She chooses the extravagant lifestyle that Tom is capable of providing instead of patiently waiting for her true love. The self-centered desires she displays demonstrates the lack of authetic love she promised Gatsby. Instead, she marries Tom “without so much as a shiver”, demonstrating her hedonistic mindset (76). Since Tom treats Daisy with minimal care, she thoughtlessly dives into an adulterous affair with Jay Gatsby. With no severe intentions towards marriage, she always “ought to have something in her life” to fulfill her heart (79).

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Because of the underlying classism of the 1920s, Gatsby's efforts to impress his aspired lover, Daisy, by holding parties and flashing materialistic accessories, never competed with her obsession with old money which made winning her love impossible. She proclaims, “Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom... It wouldn’t be true.” (Pg 126). Juxtaposing her earlier romantic feelings for Gatsby, Daisy resolves to stay with Tom due to his position's ability to provide a comfortable lifestyle.

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Daisy had thought of leaving Tom because Gatsby has such beautiful “shirts.” “Suddenly with strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily... They’re such beautiful shirts…” (Fitzgerald 98). Love becomes just another aspect of the obsession that manifest in so many of the

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Citlaly Munoz Clyne English 11 January 30, 2017 Literary Analysis The American dream and The Great Gatsby are two different things at odds. Gatsby with the difficulty with choosing between The American dream and the love of daisy. What Fitzgerald seems to be criticizing is not the American dream itself but the corruption of the American dream To commence, the American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, or gender, can be successful if they just were devoted to working hard enough to successfully achieve the dream. This American dream of Fitzgerald describes in his book is that frequently success is equated with the fortune that the independent, self-sufficient individual could succeed in life.

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The characters in the novel pretend that they have their lives all figured out, but through their successes their downfalls and emptiness can be seen, to prove that money cannot buy happiness. Jay Gatsby is the newest and upcoming star in New York during the 1920’s. Through his business and inheritance he is one of the richest men of his time. One may think that his abundance of wealth would lead him to be eternally happy, but he is the opposite. Gatsby longs for his love of Daisy, which is his personal American Dream.

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In an attempt to win Daisy back from her lifestyle of “Old Money”, Gatsby becomes excessively greedy with his money. While he himself may not care about wealth, he knows Daisy does. Therefore, when Daisy comes to his mansion, he flaunts his expensive shirts. “‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”

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