Infidelity In The Great Gatsby Analysis

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In the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby, the author identifies a huge problem throughout the novel. Fitzgerald provided us with many characters that displayed infidelity, for example Tom and Daisy. Daisy stayed married to Tom because of his great deal of money and assets, though deep down, she felt miserable and melancholy about the relationship. On the other hand Tom felt he could do as he pleased because of his physical stature and how much money he had. They would both constantly cheat on each other and have relationships with other partners, however they did not get a divorce due to their own selfish reasons. In The Great Gatsby there was a huge absence of intimacy and admiration in the marriages, and no one was trying to secure their union to each other either because they were in the relationship for their spouse’s money, or cheated because they felt lavish and could get away with it. F. Scott Fitzgerald wants the reader to know that pretending that everything is okay just leads to false illusions of a perfect reality in the eyes of one person or another.
The fact that everyone knows that Tom has a mistress and that Daisy looks the other way makes her look clueless and foolish. “The fact that he had one [a mistress] was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her [instead of Daisy]” (Fitzgerald 21). This quote shows that Tom does not care about making Daisy look dumb. He goes out