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The Great Gatsby Research Paper

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Are the People Responsible Seeing the American Dream for What It Is Not? The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a book written about what the American Dream has become. The book, published in 1925, centers around the attempt of the main character, Jay Gatsby, to get back with the girl he meets five years prior. He meets Daisy Fay while he is in the military, but she gets married while Gatsby is away at war to a man by the name of Tom Buchanan. Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who Daisy knows about, which helps her to be okay with having an affair of her own. Myrtle’s husband, George Wilson, suspects that his wife is having an affair. All the characters’ actions lead to the deaths of three characters. All the characters have a desire …show more content…

Tom lives with Daisy and has a thing with Myrtle. He does not like new money and will do anything, even blackmail, to make sure no one takes Daisy from him. Tom drives Gatsby’s car one afternoon, and “in one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car,” leading Myrtle to think it is his car (Fitzgerald 124). If Tom did not feel the need to stop for gas or use Gatsby’s car, Myrtle could not have seen it, and the deaths could never occur. Even though Tom could prevent the other two deaths, he chooses not to so he does not have to tell George about the affair. Instead, he tells Nick what he does after Nick …show more content…

Gatsby lives right across the bay from Daisy. He lives in a mansion and has lots of money, but he gets his money in illegal ways. He became a bootlegger to get money so he can get Daisy back: “He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths ㅡ so that he could ‘come over’ some afternoon to a stranger's garden”(Fitzgerald 78). Gatsby waits five years till he figures that he has enough money to face Daisy. Gatsby hosts parties to see if she will come, but she never does, so he decides to get involved in a different way, which is through Nick. Gatsby gets himself into a mess by getting involved with Daisy. His dream to be with her blocks out his common sense of what he should do, and he chooses to save Daisy’s status by telling Nick

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820 Words | 4 Pages

First, Daisy and Nick join Gatsby at Gatsby’s house next door where her and Gatsby get some time to recollect themselves, “He hadn 't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs,” (pg.112). First, in this part of the book is when Gatsby’s attitude throughout the rest of the story completely changes; therefore, the whole world seems to disappear causing him to fall for Daisy. Then, he doesn’t even compensate the rest of his house and how glorious it is due to Daisy taking over his whole entire attention span; this almost caused him to fall down his own stairs.

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803 Words | 4 Pages

Tom cares more about his affair with Myrtle than his own wife. Neither Tom nor Daisy truly want to be in the relationship. George has his life all mixed up not knowing that Myrtle is being unfaithful

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751 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby’s goal to become rich by winning Daisy gives Nick a bad impression about him and Nick thinks of him as someone who is somewhat selfish in a way that he only cares about his own financial and social

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1236 Words | 5 Pages

Tom was not loving to begin with, but because he treated her badly and forced her into the relationship, Daisy felt the urge to then cheat on him with Gatsby. It is evident within this section of the story, that Tom is basing his behavior towards Daisy, on how his affair ended with Myrtle. During the story, when Myrtle dies, Tom is unfamiliar with how to handle the situation and is unfamiliar with how to treat Daisy. Although sad, yet true, it is present

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345 Words | 2 Pages

Nick’s generosity and constant support made it easier for Gatsby to finally open up to him and tell him what his childhood was really like. “James Gatz, the son of a North Dakota railroad freight agent, is ambitious to escape his origins through his adherence to the American Dream of success; but his boyhood endeavors to become a self-made man in the Benjamin Franklin tradition fail” (Bruccoli, “Jay Gatsby” para. 2). This essentially explains Gatsby’s difficult past, and the facade he had created. He shared his childhood dreams, of being a wealthy man and suggesting that one day he would like to find love. Daisy was the first woman to meet his expectations and once he met her, time stood still for him.

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816 Words | 4 Pages

Around the end of the novel, we can see that Tom lacks respect for the women around him, while finding out that Daisy is cheating on him, he stubbornly maintains that they both have a strong relationship and that they both still love each other. Even though he cheated on her multiple times, Myrtle and Daisy had affairs with Gatsby. Tom takes this violently and uses his enormous power and brutish personality to try and intimidate and use violence to get the results and rewards that he wants. When

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775 Words | 4 Pages

Myrtle Wilson lives in a lower class town, “The Valley of Ashes” which leads her and Tom to make a commute to see each other. Myrtle has been arguing with her husband, sees a vehicle and mistakenly believes that Tom is in it. Moments after the argument, she ran into the dark street “waving her hands and shouting” but the car couldn’t come to a stop in time (Fitzgerald 105). Myrtle Wilson running into incoming traffic was all at fault of Tom Buchanan as they had been seeing each other while married to other people. Over all, Tom’s affair with Myrtle Wilson can be blamed for Jay Gatsby’s death by their selfish behavior in not committing to their marriage and Myrtle running into the street hoping to see Tom, resulting in her death.

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1380 Words | 6 Pages

Tom behavior effects everyone around him as a result if his selfish behavior two people die. Myrtle is murdered by his wife Daisy and Gatsby is murdered by George Myrtles husband. Both murders could have been avoided if Tom was more of a man and less than a scoundrel. Fitzgeralds describes Tom as a big, powerful man: " Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body-He seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top

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1743 Words | 7 Pages

Tom is extremely on edge throughout the novel about the past relationship between Gatsby and Daisy and how it is starting to develop once more. Tom, all the while, is being unfaithful to his wife, Daisy. Tom has an affair with George Wilson’s wife, Myrtle Wilson. A few times it does not go unnoticed that Tom is taking a phone call at an inappropriate times and on the other end of the phone is Myrtle Wilson. Daisy has suspicions of her husband’s infidelity but has not been told by Tom that she is being betrayed.

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781 Words | 4 Pages

Having an affair with Gatsby, saying that she still loves Tom, while also denying some of her love towards Tom. After the events that unfolded in the hotel, Tom arrives at the scene where Myrtle was killed. Tom is frightened and confused, but we can see that he starts to plan on what he wants to do next. Tom is terrified at the fact that Myrtle, his mistress, was murdered but he turns that around to gather anger and madness into Wilson. We learned this when Tom said to Nick, “What if I told him?

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801 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby is in love with Daisy and wants to see her, with the help of Nick. Since Nick is too nice to say no, he becomes wrapped up with their lives. One day Nick explained, “he was calling up at Daisy’s request-would I come to lunch at her house tomorrow… And yet I couldn’t believe that they would choose this occasion for a scene…” (120).

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708 Words | 3 Pages

Tom discovered that Myrtle and her husband who also know that his wife has an secret relation with Tom are going abroad. he also know that Daisy and Gatsby truly love each other. Tom tells that Gatsby got his money by dealing drug and that why is so rich. When all of the people go home in two separate cars. Daisy drove against Myrtle’s car and she died.

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724 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the book Gatsby uses his actions and events that happened in the past to either bring it back or move on from it. His love for Daisy started in the past, and it is so strong that he wants to bring back what they had and not leave it. Nick takes us through his story as he learns more about this character who, for everyone else in the book, is a mystery and no one really knows where he came from and what his past really was. The way he started off getting his money doing illegal actions was not exactly the right thing. When Daisy leaves Gatsby for Tom he is devastated because Daisy was everything to him and he wanted to recreate what they had in the past.

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691 Words | 3 Pages

Nick sets out on a mission to discover more about Gatsby, after being invited to one of his parties. He eventually gets Gatsby to tell him about his past and where his money came from. Gatsby's money came from bootlegging which was considered a dishonest business. Nick finds out that Gatsby throws parties every weekend to see if his long-lost love Daisy Buchanan will come. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan.

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925 Words | 4 Pages

Tom lied to George as well in order to keep his affair secret. He then ends up saving himself and killing Gatsby by blaming Myrtle 's death on Gatsby in the quote, ”He ran over Myrtle like you 'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car" (178). He explains this here, “There was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn 't true” (178). Over time, the consequences begin to take effect on George and his mental health goes downhill due to the shadieness of the upper class. He goes as far as locking his wife up in a closet, “‘I 've got my wife locked in up there,’”

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