Book Analysis of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in April 1925. This novel has been considered to be one of the greatest ever written, especially in its time.  This book has gained a great following throughout the many generations it's been available and after reading it, I can understand why. While I wouldn't say I'm a very big fan of this book, I will say that it is very well written and has a cast of morally interesting characters that drive the plot forward. The themes presented in the book seemed bland and basic at first but the more thought I put into it, the more I can see the important messages beneath.

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a book about love, heartbreak, and the immorality of  the characters. It's filled with drama and revolves around a very strange love triangle where none of the characters seem to love each other. Everyone involved inevitably does get caught or dies and the consequences of their decisions are what drive the story to its tragic end. When I started to read The Great Gatsby, it seemed like a very well-written tragic romance story and to a certain extent, it still is. In the beginning, the plot itself didn't impress me much, however, the characters were very interesting.  

The main character Nick Carraway seems to be a very open-minded person. At the beginning of the story, he claims to be highly tolerant and puts a lot of value on his morals. Throughout the novel, his morals are tested and his tolerance for others' behavior puts him in the middle of this tragic story. Throughout the entire story, Nick seemed like he was trying to find reasons for why the events of the story were unfolding the way that they did, even though he was one of the major factors that set all these events into motion. Almost every character in this story is rich, including Nick. However, Nick is separate from the other characters because he's not their specific type of rich. Nick affiliates himself with the more subdued rich people of his area rather than the new generation of overly lavish rich people that have massive houses and throw extravagant parties. So despite being a part of the new generation of rich people Nick has an opposing view on their beliefs and moral integrity. Nick is often disgusted by the actions of his associates throughout the story. For example, when he was at a party with Tom and his secret lover Myrtle Wilson. The party ended with Tom  breaking Myrtle's nose for speaking about his wife.  Another example is when Gatsby asked Nick to set up a meeting between him and Daisy without letting Daisy know he was going to be there. This was an underhanded tactic to gain her affections again and start an affair with her. Nick commonly calls himself honest but continuously involves himself with dishonest people. He seems to have a love and hate relationship with the new life he has. Often wrapped up in the excitement of new possibilities and people, but often finding himself  hating what these possibilities present and what these people do. Jordan Baker is a character he involved himself with very early in the story and is a really good example of this.

Jordan is one of the simpler characters in the story and plays the main love interest for Nick.   She's a professional golf player that had a great start to her career by cheating to win her first major tournament. She's presented in the story as a very attractive and naive person. Constantly lying to feed her ego. While being dishonest most of the time, she isn't inherently evil. She's actually the most moral character in the book. Unlike other characters, she lies to protect her image. I see it more as her acting as she belongs in the rich society while knowing that she probably doesn't. Tom however , is a character that does belong in a rich society despite having very little stock in his  morals. Tom is the story's bad guy character and he's as arrogant as he is rich. His first introduction in the story has him openly supporting racism and taking a phone call with his mistress in front of his wife. Then he throws a party with his mistress after picking her up from her home in front of her husband. He then breaks her nose at the party after she speaks about his wife. All of these events happen before the end of the second chapter. 

Tom is the most straightforward character in the story. He's mean, hypocritical, arrogant, and is used to highlight the morality floor in the book. The two characters closely associated with Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle, create the base  of the love triangle in the story. Both women seemed to simply be enamored with the rich life that Tom can provide rather than with Tom himself. Myrtle comes from a lower class and a sad marriage. She sees Tom as a way to escape her current situation and Daisy as an obstruction to that escape. Sadly Tom doesn't see it that way at all. Tom sees Myrtle as an object or a pet that must be kept in her place with violence. Daisy is almost the same as Myrtle except she doesn't come from the same humble background. Daisy is in love with money and pays very little attention to anything else. She has some regard for Nick and even seems to care about Gatsby but shows no regard for her daughter. She lied to Gatsby before he left for the war and ended up marrying Tom. Only to end up having an affair with Gatsby after he proves he can provide the lavish lifestyle she left him for. Only for that to come to an end when she kills Myrtle by accident and lets Gatsby take the blame. Even after Gatsby was killed she didn't even go to the funeral, She and Tom just ran away.

Then at the center of everything is Jay Gatsby himself. Gatsby is the most interesting character simply because the perspective of him changes a lot throughout the story. In the beginning, Nick views Gatsby as this mysterious man whose claim to wealth and power was unknown. His mysterious nature was then replaced with a more charismatic personality when Nick and Jordan spoke to him at his party. At this point, something seems off about him, It's as though he's separate from everyone else despite having to biggest house and throwing the biggest parties. He isolates himself and keeps his distance from his guests, but goes out of his way to speak to Jordan. Then as the story progressed, Nick slowly started to lose respect for him chapter by chapter. First Gatsby lied to him about his past, then when he desperately tried to convince Nick into tricking Daisy into meeting him, only to then have an affair and try to hide it from Tom. By the conclusion of the story, Jay Gatsby turned out to be a love-struck man who was in desperate pursuit of a woman he couldn't have. He was even going to take the blame for the murder of Myrtle. By the time he was murdered, I saw Gatsby as simply another victim of his high-brow society. Where everyone seems to want what they can't have. 

I believe The Great Gatsby was a story that was meant to exemplify that specific time period. The book was published in 1925 and was used to express how the rich would do just about anything to get ahead and keep up appearances. The lack of moral integrity in every character is what leads to the tragic ending. It accomplished this by using characters that had the same values and using those common values to play them against each other. The love triangle in the story wasn't started because of mutual affections but rather selfish wants from everyone involved. Nick started as just a bystander with a moral high ground in the beginning but even he succumbed to this environment and played a key role in everyone's downfall. What I find the most interesting is that every character in this story is rich. None of them should want anything they don't already but because they kept trying to get the few things they couldn't it ended up destroying what they already had. For example, Gatsby didn't need to attract Daisy especially since she was already married, but his affair with her led to his death. Then there was Tom who was having an affair with Myrtle despite being married to Daisy which lead to Myrtle's death. Finally, there was Myrtle who was already married and decided to have an affair with Tom which lead to her death as well as the deaths of her husband and Gatsby. Love is something money can't but so guess they all paid the price by sacrificing the life they had.

In conclusion, The Great Gatsby is a book about flawed characters in a flawed society that have an abundance of wealth but no morals. According to the Guardian's review of the book, ”the characters in The Great Gatsby are in themselves very flawed and very hard to sympathize with. But that is the beauty of the book. (The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald - review, 2021) “  and according to bookseriesrecaps,” There is a point in every woman’s life when she wishes she was not smart enough to see people for what they truly are. This book, however, is just that: an observation of the systematization of society. (Review of The Great Gatsby - Book Series Recaps, 2021) “ I completely agree with both of these reviews on the novel. Instead of being just a tragedy romance novel, it's actually an observation on the lack of moral integrity in that time period and a demonstration of how the structure of society will influence how people get to the top.