Who Is Fitzgerald Present Nick's Flaws In The Great Gatsby

In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald addresses the idea that, because we often want to be perceived as successful by those around us, we often change our outward image to reflect wealth, and as a result, hinder our own self-discovery. The Great Gatsby takes place on Long Island in New York in 1922. Nick is a young veteran from the midwest who acts as the narrator of the novel. Nick meets many people in his time on East and West Egg. The novel mainly focuses on Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, Myrtle Wilson, a young woman Tom has an affair with, and arguably the biggest focus of the book, Gatsby. Throughout the book, Nick shares the story of his time with Gatsby and why his tolerance of people’s flaws

The Great Gatsby is set in the 1920’s when women were generally seen as successful when they found wealthy husbands. After finding this wealth, women more often than not would fade into the background of their husband’s influence, instead of discovering their own happiness. Daisy fits this description perfectly. She is a young woman who married Tom Buchanan because of the “unquestionable practicality that was close at hand” (Fitzgerald 132). Due to Tom being a wealthy Yale alumni and Daisy “feeling the pressure of the world outside,” instead of waiting for her true love, Gatsby, to return from war, she married Tom to secure her place in the world of elites (132). When first getting to know Nick in chapter 1, Daisy discusses her young daughter with him claiming that “the best thing a girl can be in this world [is] a beautiful little fool” (30). Through these events Fitzgerald shows that during this age, women were seen as more of a shadow of their husbands than as the independent and intelligent women they really

Myrtle is a young woman with an “immediately perceptible vitality” who is married to George Wilson, a low class man who runs a repair garage in the city (37). George Wilson is a loving and devoted husband to Myrtle, yet she carries on an affair with Tom Buchanan mostly based on his wealth. When describing the first time Myrtle laid eyes on Tom to her apartment party guests, all she mentions about him is that “he had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes” (44). Fitzgerald purposefully has Myrtle only mention things such as a nice dress suit that show wealth because it proves that desire for wealth can become overwhelming. In chapter 7, when Tom stops at Wilson’s garage for gas with Nick and Jordan “[Myrtle’s} eyes, wide with jealous terror, were not fixed on Tom but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife” (112). Later, as Gatsby is describing the scene of Daisy hitting Myrtle with a car, he says “it seemed to [him] that she wanted to speak to [him and Daisy]” and “thought [they] were somebody she knew” (126). Myrtle ran at the car because Gatsby and Daisy were driving in Tom’s car that she recognized. Myrtle believed she was running towards Tom. This moment is significant because it shows that Myrtle’s jealousy for Tom’s wife and her lavish life fueled her to run after him and