Morals in the Great Gatsby.
The book has different characters each playing a different role in the plot. These characters can be analyzed in consideration of their morality. Moral values in every character can be depicted by the words they choose to use and how the words are expressed.
I respect Nick Carraway for his loving nature. Nick spent time with his loved ones, having a chat and generally catching up when the war ended (Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The great gatsby. Broadview Press, 2007). He visited Daisy and talked for a while when she raised a complaint on why Carraway never attended her wedding with Tom yet they were cousins. “I wasn’t back from the war”, Nick said. This shows that if Nick was not in war, he wouldn’t hesitate to spend time with relatives showing his loving nature. He further spent his whole day catching up with Tom, Daisy and Miss Baker. Carraway left very late in the evening to his home after being escorted by Tom and Daisy to the door.
Though many people find it hard describing how someone looks like, I respect Carraway in how he can create an image on someone’s appearance in your mind without even knowing the person. This is evident when Nick describes Catherine, Mrs. Wilson’s sister. “The sister Catherine was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty with a solid sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature towards the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face”, said Nick with just a single glance at the lady. He is also appreciative when he admits that the lady looks gorgeous.
However, I lose my respect for Jay Gatsby for some of his actions. Jay Gatsby is a representative of the wealthy personnel in the play. He is somehow depicted to be self-centred and seems to care all about himself and those whom he loves and leaves out the rest. This is evident when Daisy and he were driving and happened accidentally to hit Mrs. Wilson to death using their car. This egocentric behavior is also depicted in his chat with Nick Carraway when he inquired if the victim passed away which Nick confirmed. “I thought so. I told Daisy I thought so. It’s better that shock should all come at once. She stood it pretty well”, said Jay. These words showed that he was only concerned with how Daisy felt but not how the victim’s family would react to the accident they caused.
Jay chose to have an affair with Daisy even after knowing that she was married to Tom. He went ahead and dated Daisy behind Buchanan’s back which blew up when Daisy said it out in presence of her husband. This relationship also led to the firing of almost all Gatsby’s servants, just to ensure that none of them will snitch on his affair. “I wanted somebody who wouldn’t gossip. Daisy comes over quite often- in the afternoons”, said Gatsby which was proof of his immoral acts with Daisy. Being a wealthy man, he could find another lady rather than breaking Tom’s marriage just to meet his satisfaction even though they were in a relationship before he was deployed.
Fitzgerald chose to represent these characters in this form as a clear representation of the people’s actions in modern society. People act according to their status i.e. wealthy people use the money to manipulate the poor as seen in these times. He also wanted to show that there are consequences of the decisions we make e.g. murder of Gatsby by Wilson. Although Gatsby and Nick both served in the military, Nick was morally upright in his actions compared to Jay.
In conclusion, there are rewards and consequences for every choice we make. This is shown by the fall of Gatsby due to his decisions. Different characters in this book played their roles effectively hence can be morally analyzed as shown.
Work Cited.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The great gatsby. Broadview Press, 2007.