Misjudgment in The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis Essay Example

Basing your opinions on someone from your first look at them is the worst thing to do. Doing this ruins relationships and can even cause death. Misjudgment in characters is used in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to develop the theme that perception is not always reality. The characters misjudged each other, which caused violence. 

Everyone thought that Gatsby killed Myrtle when it was really Daisy. Since everyone thought that he killed her, no one liked Gatsby anymore. Gatsby takes the blame for Daisy on page 143, Nick asks Gatsby, “ Was Daisy driving?” Gatsby replied, “ Yes” “but of course I’ll say I was. …” Gatsby didn’t want Daisy to go to jail and be hated so he lied and said that it was his fault. Once word got around that Gatsby killed Myrtle everyone hated him because of misjudgment. “ Gatsby walks the rest of the way to Gatsby’s mansion… He shoots Gatsby…” Gatsby was killed by George out of misjudgment. Misjudgment leads to death and hatred of many people. 

Daisy and Gatsby had met when they were young but never talked after that until they were adults. Gatsby had worked all his life to become rich and have a nice home so he could impress Daisy. Once they met again, Gatsby thought that he was the only person Daisy loved and was wrong. Tom and Gatsby got into an argument and Gatsby told Tom, “She only married you because I was poor, and she was tired of waiting for me…in her heart she never loved anyone except me.” (Page 130) Daisy never said that she loved Gatsby more than Tom. Since Gatsby thought that she did, him and Tom didn’t like each other anymore. Daisy did not want to lose her relationship with Tom. She told Tom on page 132, “I did love him once- but loved you too.” Misjudgment in these 3 relationships caused fighting and violence. 

Gatsby was known as the party man and the party host. Everyone went to his parties because he was a good party host, and no one knew his true background. Assumptions were “ he killed a man and was German spy during the war.” plus many more. No one knew Gatsby’s real job and just kept making up jobs. When Gatsby died no one showed up to his funeral but everyone always went to his parties. On page 187 the Owl- eyes told Nick, “Why, my God! They used to go there by the hundreds.” Everyone loved Gatsby for his parties but once they heard a lie, they hated him. They disrespected him because of rumors.

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses misjudgment to develop the theme that perception isn’t always reality. He uses the assumptions that Gatsby killed Myrtle, Daisy only loving Gatsby and everyone liking Gatsby for his parties. If you always based your views on someone by other people’s words you wouldn’t know the truth about anyone.