In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes religion, God, and theology to represent the moral corruption of the Jazz Age and the tragedy of the American Dream. The novel is set in the 1920s, and follows several characters including Jay Gatsby, a wealthy man who is determined to win back the love of Daisy Buchanan, a woman for whom he is willing to make any sacrifice. The moral corruption of the era is represented through the characters’ disregard for morality and their attempts to defy God and traditional Christian beliefs as they live lavishly. Through the characters’ actions, Fitzgerald implies that the pursuit of pleasure and wealth leads to the tragedy of the American Dream, which can be seen through the tragic fate of some characters.Religion, …show more content…
Nick, the narrator, first meets Myrtle while on a trip with Tom. Myrtle lives in The Valley of Ashes which represents the death of American dreams. "Myrtle Wilson's husband, who was retreating swiftly into the background, knew nothing except that he was in some manner in Myrtle's company and that he had no right to be there," (Fitzgerald 7). According to this quotation, the characters have given up on the moral obligations of marriage and adopted the hedonistic way of life of the Jazz Age. Additionally, Daisy, Nick's cousin, is immediately attracted by Gatsby the moment she meets him and learns of his wealth. Well, I've had a very difficult time, and I'm fairly pessimistic about everything," Daisy says (Fitzgerald 86). As it is a prevalent subject of the Jazz Age, this implies that Daisy has forsaken conventional morals in favor of financial luxury and pleasure. Fitzgerald thus uses religious themes to illustrate the moral decay of the …show more content…
It was a question of luck that I should have rented a house in one of the oddest communities in North America, Nick reflects on his stay in the East (Fitzgerald 2). This phrase paints a dismal picture of the American Dream by implying that the protagonists live in a society where pursuing wealth has substituted pursuing virtue and religion. Additionally, while Gatsby and Nick are talking about his past, Gatsby says, "Can't repeat the past? You can, of course (Fitzgerald 111). This suggests that Gatsby is making an effort to reject conventional Christian values, which is a tragic rendering of the American Dream. Therefore, Fitzgerald utilizes theology to portray the tragedy of the American
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel "The Great Gatsby", the author paints a vivid picture of the roaring twenties, a time of wealth and extravagance for many Americans. However the wealthy of this time period would often commit corrupt and hollow acts during this time period, simply for personal gain. Fitzgerald's novel mainly centers around the newly wealthy Jay Gatsby, and his love for the beautiful but married Daisy Buchanan and the things he would do to try and win her over. Through his portrayal of the characters and their actions, Fitzgerald explores the theme of the hollowness or selfishness, among the rich and wealthy of this time period.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, raised as a Catholic from birth, had religious influences unconsciously serve as a foundation for his mindset. Consequently, his work has religious elements embedded in his stories. Fitzgerald’s short story Benediction is one example of his stance on religion in the 1920s. In the short story, a young woman named Lois wishes to rejoin her lover, Howard but stops to meet her brother Keith for advice. Keith, soon to be Priest, catches up with her.
“Gatsby goes to spectacular lengths to try to achieve what Nick Carraway calls “his incorruptible dream” (Sutton1). Gatsby’s moral decline through his life shows his failed attempt at the American dream. “The collapse of Gatsby’s attempt to win Daisy proves that dreams, money, and blind faith in life’s possibilities, are not enough for a man to reach his goals”
In his book, The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald shines a blinding light on the lifestyle of Americans living on the East Coast during the Jazz Age. He uses the story and the characters to show the ways in which the “American Dream” have been perverted. Specifically he uses the character of Jay Gatsby to illustrate the greed for material things that permeated the era. Jay Gatsby thinks he can buy happiness.
In The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald shows how society gets corrupted trying to achieve the American Dream through the characterization of many characters like Gatsby. Jay Gatsby was a man who rose from nothing to being extremely wealthy, many would consider him as someone who has reached the American Dream. However after so much work he never really got the one thing that made him happy. Many critiques like Fussel argues that Gatsby is corrupted by the values and attitudes he holds in common with the society that destroys him. Others like Callahan and Gunn believe that the Great Gatsby tries to convince people that money and success is everything but they failed in the end by showing how miserable Gatsby is without Daisy.
These sacrifices and their impact on the lives of those who chase it has been showcased in this social satirical novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald uses the character Jay Gatsby as a representation of people striving to accomplish the American Dream in his novel. Through his character, he reveals that despite the American Dream's promise of success and happiness, the pursuit of wealth and power often leads to corruption, alienation, and
The first way Fitzgerald depicts religion being replaced by wealth in The Great Gatsby, is through the worship of the billboard of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. In the Bible, God is a grand and perfect being that watches over and protects mankind from harm. He is seen as kind and loving by those who follow Him. Even though the billboard is depicted gloriously as a God would be, it is not gracious towards those to who look to it, unlike the God in the Bible. This consumeristic billboard of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg watches over the dirtiest, poorest place in the book, the valley of ashes.
As a result, S. Fitzgerald portrays the corruption during this era by creating a novel infused with lies and deception. The author, S. Fitzgerald drives a basic storyline in which characters, in the novel, compose their identity through lies and deception. Jay
The Moral Decay of the Materialistic Although F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby debuted in 1925– before the Great Depression– it serves as a prophetic exemplification of the the material excess of the 1920s that drowned out signs of the coming Great Depression. The book’s plot follows the bootlegger Jay Gatsby as he pursues his old love Daisy Buchanan through flaunting his new extravagant lifestyle, mainly by throwing ostentatious parties. Yet, in the end, Daisy chooses her unfaithful husband Tom over Gatsby. Through Fitzgerald’s use of wealthy, materialistic characters, he comments on the effect of the material excess of the roaring twenties: moral corruption.
“They’re such beautiful shirts, it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.” (Fitzgerald, 89) At this moment she breaks down, for she had realized she had married money, not love. She also realized that instead of marrying Tom for money, she could have married Gatsby for both love and money. The once perfect Tom in her eyes is no longer the ideal man, and Daisy’s chase for her American Dream ended only in regret and
Leona Nguyen Mr. McNichol AP English III 27 March 2023 Religion and Moral Corruption in The Great Gatsby People generally disregard Fitzgerald's religious upbringing and thus overlook this significant factor in his writing, and yet The Great Gatsby is so heavily analyzed because of its Catholic allusions. As a preamble to describe Gatsby’s opulent party, Fitzgerald portrays a Catholic Mass to present readers the grandeur and transcendence that the party evokes. The congregation cannot receive Holy Communion without a priest, likewise a party cannot start without a host; and analogously, Gatsby is represented as the host to his Masslike jamboree. Moreover, Fitzgerald also associates the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg from a valley of ashes
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald skillfully highlights Gatsby's ultimate failure in achieving the American Dream, underscored by the illusion he creates and his misplaced faith in this dream. Driven by an insatiable desire for wealth and social status, Gatsby constructs an elaborate facade in a desperate attempt to win back Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loves. However, this grand illusion of success and happiness eventually crumbles, exposing the profound emptiness and moral decay that lie beneath its surface. As the novel's narrator, Nick Carraway, keenly observes, "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality
An important theme in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the corruption of morals because of wealth. It doesn’t matter if one comes from old or new money, wealth will corrupt the morality of even the humblest. The first example of wealth corrupting morals is in the indifference to infidelity between the married Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. The next example of wealth corrupting morals is seen in Jordan Baker’s actions to keep her luxurious lifestyle. Third, Jim Gatsby’s pursuit of wealth lead to the corruption of his morals.
The Corruption of The American Dream in The Great Gatsby In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates society in the 1920’s and the desire for the people with in it to achieve the American Dream, which embodies the hope that one can achieve power, love and a higher economic/social status through one’s commitment and effort. The novel develops the story of a man named Jay Gatsby and his dream of marrying what he describes as his “golden girl”, also known as, Daisy Buchanan, his former lover. Fitzgerald explores the corruption of the American dream through the Characters; Myrtle, Gatsby and Daisy.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values. One of the major themes explored in this novel is the Hollowness of the Upper Class. The entire book revolves around money including power and little love. Coincidentally the three main characters of the novel belong to the upper class and throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how this characters have become corrupted and have lost their morality due to excess money and success and this has led them to change their perspective towards other people and they have been portrayed as short-sighted to what is important in life. First of all, we have the main character of this novel, Gatsby who won’t stop at nothing to become rich overnight in illegal dealings with mobsters such as Wolfsheim in order to conquer Daisy’s heart.”