GOOD AND EVIL IN GATSBY AND REAL LIFE

Outline

1.Introduction—content of novels and its importance
2.Biography of Fitzgerald
3.Plot summary of “The Great Gatsby”
4.Explanation of why evil prevails and good retracts
5.Contemporary examples
6.Conclusion and Final remarks

Introduction

Culler notes that “novels have long been credited with making people dissatisfied with the lives they inherit and eager for something new – whether life in big cities or romance or revolution.” Novels tend to bring old ideas into new settings. This is only possible because history tends to repeat itself in vaguely mysterious ways. Everything in novels is true except for the dates. Novels mirror the outside world by bringing it into the author’s inner world and showing it to the readers as fiction, in reality, it portrays the circumstances that have taken place in the past.

Therefore, reading books and novels can help you not only to travel to faraway places without ever having to get up but also enlighten you and boosts your wisdom and experience; because when you read novels, you are reading another person’s experience and you then use the important points for shaping your own life.

Fitzergerald

Fitzgerald is probably best known for his literary masterpiece “The Great Gatsby”. Often attributed to being called “The Great American Novel” (alongside Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”), the novel is set in the Jazz Age or what Fitzgerald describes as the Roaring Twenties. It was a time of economic boom, more freedom and time, and Prohibition.

It was a changing time and the rich were given many privileges like” tax benefits” and a greater disparity grew between the haves and have nots. His novel represents all of this in a two-hundred-page novel with rich and complex language to accompany it. As it is often cited, “The themes in The Great Gatsby echo and scrutinize the societal influences prevalent in the Jazz Age. Its characters embody the various classes, values, behaviors, and customs, as well as the ideals and ethics—or lack thereof—of the time.”

Plot of Gatsby

The Great Gatsby tells the story of narrator Nick Caraway’s encounter with a man who is chasing the American Dream—Jay Gatsby. He is a man with “an extraordinary gift for hope.” The novel portrays the American Dream and its limitations. Often cited as the novel with horribly dislikable characters (like Daisy Buchannan), the story revolves around Nick’s meetings and understanding of three social classes—old money, new money, and no money.

Gatsby, a firm believer that the past can be duplicated and enjoyed in the present and future, tries to win back the love of his darling, Daisy. Daisy is already married to a wealthy man named Tom Buchannan who is a former classmate of Nick’s. He is described as “one of those men who achieved such an acute, limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax.” Therefore, at its base, it is a love triangle between three characters.

But, it is so much more than a love story. It is a story about reality, appearances, deceit, money, and greed. A common notion states “in stories, evil fails while it prevails in real life”. Fitzgerald knew of life’s true miseries. He suffered from alcoholism and his wife from mental illness but this did not stop her greed from having a luxurious and demanding lifestyle. To provide for this, he wrote for Hollywood and kept up his novel writing. Just as the novel portrays, evil tends to win out at the end. Now, this seems to be a bone of contention amongst readers.

Real-life Relevance

Personally, I feel like the novel’s ending is too sad but realistic. It portrays the real world and its consequences most clearly and comprehensively. Gatsby dies and Tom and Daisy continue with their lives as if nothing happened. Daisy is not even once guilty that Gatsby took the fall for her nor does she admit to Tom that she was to blame for the car accident. Therefore, there is no happy ending and ultimately evil wins while the good dies and is forgotten. This is consistent with today’s circumstances.

There are many examples around the world in which people of higher position, with greater wealth and resources, commit sins but they are not punished for it. Instead, they are free to wander about and the outsider, most likely the poor (in the novel, wealth doesn’t seem to be the biggest concern) have to face the consequences. Evil, unfortunately, prevails in our world and society. Some say that it’s because of the corrupted and faulty legal system while others blame it on luck and fortune. I think it’s a bit of both.

Examples

For example, there are still many rape and murder cases in which the perpetrators have been identified but the police say they lack the proper resources for catching them. The media creates the hype but it mostly damages the victim’s loved ones. It does very little for actually solving the case and after a few years when things have quieted down, people forget and move on. This leads to no one getting punished. Therefore, these kinds of situations breed more pessimists (but more accurately realists) and we tell our children and youth that the world is a cruel place where only evil prevails.

 

Conclusion

Critic Bruccoli notes “Gatsby is truly great by virtue of his capacity to commit himself to his aspirations”. However, Gatsby could not change society or its ways by himself. His death is not even significant as only his father and Nick attend while his so-called friends that attend his every party refuse to do so.

J.K. Rowling quotes in her first book of the Harry Potter series that “humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.” She is completely right as Tom chooses to continue being whatever he is, Daisy lets Gatsby take the fall for her and never once shows guilt for killing Myrtle while Gatsby commits the biggest crime of all—devoting himself to a one-sided love when Daisy made it clear that she loves both Tom and Gatsby.