The Great Gatsby Marriage Analysis

When the words “I do” escape the mouth of an individual, their life is forever changed. In this miniscule moment of time, they become legally bound to their significant other. This marital bond is built upon love, trust, respect, loyalty, passion, and much more. It holds great power as it brings many joy, stability, hope, and comfort. However, this bond could also wreak havoc on one’s emotional state if the trust is broken. In the same miniscule amount of time it takes to finalize a marriage, it can be destroyed just as fast. With one disloyal action, all aspects of the marriage can shatter to pieces. F. Scott Fitzgerald must have witnessed this as he emphasizes cheating in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Although he wrote this in the 1920s, human

As Gatsby dwells on the time where Daisy committed her love to him, he has come to believe that he is entitled to Daisy’s love. In reality, Daisy has moved on with her life, and Gatsby’s fantasy would destroy a mother-daughter bond and a marriage. Despite the catastrophic consequences, Gatsby makes an attempt to disrupt Daisy’s life when he exclaims, “I’ve got something to tell you, old sport…”(130). This interjection arose out of pure frustration and did not bring any guilt to Gatsby. He intended to expose his and Daisy’s affair and, with this, risk the destruction of Daisy’s relationships. Gatsby’s absorption in the pursuit of Daisy [fantasy] does not end here; he continually focuses on the past so much so that he does not acknowledge the time in which he and Daisy were not together. Fitzgerald illustrates this detachment from reality through the first moment Gatsby saw Daisy’s child. From Nick’s point of view, Gatsby “...kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before”(117). Gatsby was so wrapped up in his goal to obtain Daisy’s love that he never even recognized the time they spent apart as real. Thus, to him, it would be impossible for Daisy to have a child, and hence the disbelief of her existence. As Gatsby becomes trapped by the

After marrying a man of a lower social class, Myrtle finds herself unsatisfied and filled with regret. She then places the blame on her husband, Wilson, by accusing him of misleading her to believe that they were perfect for each other. When she finds herself in an unsatisfied state, she convinces herself that Wilson forced her to cheat in order to be happy. Myrtle sees this cheating as her only resort as Wilson “...wasn’t fit to lick [her] shoe”(34). Myrtle specifically shifts the blame onto Wilson in order to free her conscience of any guilty emotions. This allows her to continue to cheat without remorse or thought of how her husband may feel. From Myrtle’s perspective, her disloyal actions stem from his deception, so, why should she care about their marriage anyway? Myrtle takes her husband’s innocent actions and warps them to benefit herself, providing her justification for