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How Is Jay Gatsby Morally Ambiguous

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Suppose your best friend, whom you’ve known your whole life, decides to steal someone’s wallet, even though he is someone you usually look up to for his pure honesty and integrity. You may have to think of them as morally ambiguous, or when a character’s actions discourage a reader from identifying them as purely good or purely evil. In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is a morally ambiguous character who plays a pivotal role in the novel due to the pure intentions behind his illegal behavior, mixed with his open idea of having a relationship with a married woman. Throughout the novel, the balance of evil and being human in Gatsby’s efforts and actions allows the reader to effortlessly identify Gatsby as morally ambiguous. …show more content…

Gatsby conveys his feelings about Daisy clearly: after having an affair with her, he wants her to leave her husband, Tom, for him even though they are already married. He ignores the immoral question of having an affair when already married and views it as morally okay just because he is benefiting from the situation. He is blindly in love, ignoring the morally unjust circumstances that accompany the affair. According to, The Great Gatsby,“‘Daisy, that’s all over now,’ he said earnestly. It doesn’t matter any more. Just tell him the truth—-that you never loved him—-and its all wiped out forever’”(Fitzgerald 132). Since their original encounter, Gatsby has been infatuated with Daisy. He went as far as collecting newspaper snippets and purchasing a house across the bay from her. He even hosted large parties, hoping that she would miraculously show up so he could acquaint himself with her again. Gatsby was delusionally enamored with Daisy. He could not visually understand that Daisy could not just leave her husband for him. He believes that she can just drop everything, and things could be the same as when they first met during the

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Gatsby gained feelings for this women that only wanted to get revenge on her husband. This action by Daisy is disgusting in the way that Gatsby loved this women so much that he was willing to die for her but all Daisy wanted was revenge on Tom for what he had did to her. Leading someone on, especially to the extent that Daisy does is utterly disrespectful. Daisy knows how in love Gatsby was for her and yet claims that she is in love with Gatsby also but is using him to get back at Tom. This shows how selfish Daisy actually is, she does not care about other people’s feelings and only cares about herself.

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803 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Gatsby and Daisy were in true love before he went to join the war, and Gatsby promises to come back to their relationship. After the war, he still loves her and dedicates himself to her in the quote, "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay" (citation). After Gatsby left for the war he came back to Daisy, now married in a relationship that was obviously dysfunctional. He is scared, though, and does not talk to her for over 5 years, explained here, “He had waited five years and bought a mansion…” (citation).

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What does Gatsby realize about Daisy ’s feelings towards the

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Gatsby had spent so much time and effort pursuing this unrealistic view of Daisy that it became impossible for her to live up to these expectations. He never made a real effort to find out who she actually is, or even simply respect that she had created a life apart from him. It’s unsurprising that he is disappointed by reality; he has been living in an elaborate dream, deluding himself to believe that his plan to win her over will work just because he wants it to, and ignoring the real factors that would break this illusion until it is broken for him. Gatsby is aware of the factors playing against him when it comes to his dream of being with Daisy, such as her marriage and commitment to her family, but he creates a mental version of events that serve him when he cannot accept this reality. Subsequently, he suffers from realizing that his imagined perfect version of Daisy and their perfect life together is not real or reasonable.

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433 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the story Gatsby's life revolves around trying to restore his relationship with Daisy, his previous love interest. He believes that by becoming wealthy and throwing extravagant parties will win Daisy's love back despite her being remarried. One of Gatsby's flaws is his inability to let go of the past. As said in the book “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion”. It is shown that even after everything that has happened between the two, his feelings for

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560 Words | 3 Pages

These quotes infer that Gatsby doesn't even love Daisy he just thinks he does because he doesn't see her for who she really is, he is blinded by his past, he thinks he can recreate the past and that everything will be the same. He's made some kind of perfect image of her in his mind that he doesn't see her for who she really

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260 Words | 2 Pages

In F.Scott Fitzgerald's novel,The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby embodies the morally ambiguous character that is in almost every novel. In this book the reader cannot infer that gatsby is purely evil or purely good by the way Fitzgerald make Gatsby seem. Fitzgerald make Gatsby seem evil by saying the rumors that are going around town about him. He makes him seem good by showing the compassion he has towards Nick and Daisy. Finally, he makes it seem as if Gatsby may be a bad person by the affair he is having with Daisy.

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598 Words | 3 Pages

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby, the character of Jay Gatsby stands out as one of moral ambiguity, captivating readers with his mysterious persona and complex actions. Gatsby's character is defined by his lavish displays of wealth and his unwavering devotion to Daisy Buchanan, the object of his affection. However, beneath his glamorous shell lies a man whose moral compass is often difficult to decipher. Gatsby’s moral ambiguity can be seen in his shady background and business dealings, however, everything he does seems to be in the interest of impressing Daisy, making the reader question if Gatsby is all that bad. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is an extremely mysterious character.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates a morally ambiguous character that can’t be defined as strictly good or evil. Moral ambiguity is the driving force towards Gatsby’s actions. The character Gatsby demonstrates morally ambiguous qualities that initiate plot throughout the whole novel. Morally ambiguous choices can be viewed towards Gatsby’s character throughout the novel. The first glimpse of Gatsby is introduced in the first chapter while Nick is “exempting him from his reaction” of a “uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever” already placing Gatsby in a position of moral ambiguity (Fitzgerald 2).

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Not black, not white, but grey all over. Moral ambiguity is a euphemism used when a character or situation has moral elements, but it is unclear whether they are morally correct. Its usage in literature is both confusing yet intriguing to readers as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, follows the life of the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby through the perspective of narrator Nick Carraway. As the novel explores the shallow materialism of the Roaring Twenties, it focuses on how Gatsby’s pure intentions of pursuing his love interest, Daisy Buchanan, ultimately leads to immoral inclinations by leaving a trail of pain for those around him as well as himself. Gatsby’s moral ambiguity reveals how just like many others in the materialistically-driven

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771 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby's obsession with reuniting with Daisy changed his way of living forever. Gatsby says “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (Fitzgerald 11). After Gatsby met Daisy, he made it his mission to spend the rest of his life loving her. However, Daisy married a wealthy man soon after Gatsby left for the war. When he returned, he went to great lengths to try to live up to Daisy's standards.

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1266 Words | 6 Pages

If Gatsby is to truly love Daisy, instead of destroying her marriage, he would have let her go. However, because of his extreme devotion towards Daisy, he dreams of a utopia where their feelings for each other is mutual. Thus, he demands her to say that she has never loved Tom to affirm that she loves him only, but Daisy does fall in love with Tom at some point in her marriage, in between the five years of Gatsby’s absence. Nonetheless, Gatsby does not give up. He “[clutches]

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720 Words | 3 Pages

Gatsby is not terrific because he is a man that is willing to love someone who is married. He is fully aware of Daisy’s marriage to Tom, but continues to show interest in her. He ruins a marriage and that is an immoral act to commit. Tom is able to see in Gatsby and Daisy’s eyes that they love each other. Tom was unaware of this as “his mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago” (Fitzgerald 119).

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712 Words | 3 Pages

Character Ambiguity in “The Great Gatsby” Throughout a large majority of fictional literature, the characters are constructed to act and react upon however the author fabricates them to be. Within the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan’s character can be interpreted in a variety of connotations; her attitudes and behaviors reflect on her morality. Throughout the narrative, Fitzgerald displays Daisy as a controversial character with examples of her ambiguous personality qualities and actions.

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703 Words | 3 Pages

Gatsby falls in love with Daisy the first minute he meets her and never stops loving her even though she has obviously moved on. Gatsby does everything he can to be closer to her like buying “that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (78). Gatsby knows that if he can get the girl of his dreams he will not feel lonely anymore. " He talked a lot about the past… he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was” (87).

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