moral decay quotes in the great gatsby
"Nevertheless you did throw me over," said Jordan suddenly. At the same time, this is the moment when Gatsby's delusional dreams start breaking down. (1.4). This line, which comes after Myrtle's death and Tom, Daisy, and Jordan's cold reaction to it, establishes that Nick has firmly come down on Gatsby's side in the conflict between the Buchanans and Gatsby. Early in the novel, we get this mostly optimistic illustration of the American Dreamwe see people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. "In Mr. Gatsby's car.". That's why I like you." WebIn The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald many symbols are used to support the themes and characters. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. (4.43). This impression is further underscored by the fairy tale imagery that follows the connection of Daisy's voice to money. Compare this to the moment when Gatsby feels uneasy making a scene when having lunch with Tom and Daisy because "I can't say anything in his house, old sport." Imagine any time you told anyone something about yourself, you then had to whip out some physical object to prove it was true! "I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance. They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. In fact, the image is pretty overtly sexualnotice how it's Myrtle's breast that's torn open and swinging loose, and her mouth ripped open at the corners. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. Of course, Nick is quickly distracted from the billboard's "vigil" by the fact that Myrtle is staring at the car from the room where George has imprisoned her. This speaks to her materialism and how, in her world, a certain amount of wealth is a barrier to entry for a relationship (friendship or more). He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. (3.29). (5.118). This imagery of growth serves two purposes. Michaelis and this man reached her first but when they had torn open her shirtwaist still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The You may think that's sentimental but I mean itto the bitter end.Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he suggested. Click on each character's name to read a detailed analysis! This description of Daisy's life apart from Gatsby clarifies why she picks Tom in the end and goes back to her hopeless ennui and passive boredom: this is what she has grown up doing and is used to. (8.72-105). You will also often be asked to compare Tom and Wilson, two characters who share some plot details in common.This passage, which explicitly contrasts these two men's reactions to finding out their wives are having affairs, is a great place to start. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. Webvincent lambert priest. Daisy?" "O, my Ga-od! Here, we see the main points of her personalityor at least the way that she comes across to Nick. Plus, this observation comes at the end of the third chapter, after we've met all the major players finallyso it's like the board has been set, and now we finally have enough information to distrust our narrator. "They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. For Nick, this voice is full of "indiscretion," an interesting word that at the same time brings to mind the revelation of secrets and the disclosure of illicit sexual activity. The problem is that this robs her of her humanity and personhoodshe is not exactly like him, and it's unhealthy that he demands for her to be an identical reflection of his mindset. It was too late. We also see Tom grossly underreporting his bad behavior (we have seen one of his "sprees" and it involved breaking Myrtle's nose after sleeping with her while Nick was in the next room) and either not realizing or ignoring how damaging his actions can be to others. Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,I must have you!". While this doesn't give away the plot, it does help the reader be a bit suspicious of everyone but Gatsby going into the story. " (2.119-20). (5.118). (4.164). Perhaps this is because Jordan would be a step up for Nick in terms of money and class, which speaks to Nick's ambition and class-consciousness, despite the way he paints himself as an everyman. This sets the stage for their affair being on unequal footing: while each has love and affection for the other, Gatsby has thought of little else but Daisy for five years while Daisy has created a whole other life for herself. 
After seeing Tom's liaisons with Myrtle and his generally boorish behavior, this claim to loving Daisy comes off as fake at best and manipulative at worst (especially since a spree is a euphemism for an affair!). Also, this injury foreshadows Myrtle's death at the hands of Daisy, herself. For all of his judging of others, he's clearly not a paragon of virtue, and Jordan clearly recognizes that. WebOne of the ever present obstacles that seemingly will go unattended to is moral decay. 
But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alonehe stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. However, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. What we do know is that however "powerless" Wilson might be, he still has power enough to imprison his wife in their house and to unilaterally uproot and move her several states away against her will. "I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God. This speaks to Tom's insecurityeven as someone born into incredible money and privilege, there's a fear it could be taken away by social climbers. Perhaps this shows that for all his attempts to cultivate himself, Gatsby could never escape the tastes and ambitions of a Midwestern farm boy. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. 
He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. She hasn't put that initial love with Gatsby on a pedestal the way Gatsby has. In the valley, there is such a thick coating gray dust that it looks like everything is made out of this ashy substance. 
They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the aleand yet they weren't unhappy either. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. of a motor cycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside. "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon," cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" In this case it's not just Daisy herself, but also his dream of being with her inside his perfect memory. 
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. She began to sob helplessly. I'd never understood before. Unlike Gatsby, who against all evidence to the contrary believes that you can repeat the past, Daisy wants to know that there is a future. Daisy complains about Tom, and Tom serially cheats on Daisy, but at the end of the day, they are unwilling to forgo the privileges their life entitles them to. We see explicitly in this scene that, for Gatsby, Daisy has come to represent all of his larger hopes and dreams about wealth and a better lifeshe is literally the incarnation of his dreams.
Just he earlier described loving the anonymity of Manhattan, here Nick finds himself enjoying a similar melting-pot quality as he sees an indistinctly ethnic funeral procession ("south-eastern Europe" most likely means the people are Greek) and a car with both black and white people in it. This is one of the ways in which their marriage, dysfunctional as it is, works well. Ask below and we'll reply! . She began to sob helplessly. He also insists that he knows more than the dog seller and Myrtle, showing how he looks down at people below his own classbut Myrtle misses this because she's infatuated with both the new puppy and Tom himself. (1.118). . . "Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. We have no idea what Wilson has been saying to her to provoke this attack. (7.164). "Take 'em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. "Well, other people are," she said lightly. And one fine morning So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. Still, unlike Gatsby, whose motivations are laid bare, it's hard to know what Daisy is thinking and how invested she is in their relationship, despite how openly emotional she is during this reunion. The shock and surprise that he experiences when he realizes that Daisy really does have a daughter with Tom show how little he has thought about the fact the Daisy has had a life of her own outside of him for the last five years. Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting from time to time to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind. (8.24-27). Though many people may recognize the issue at hand, its become a pattern to let it be as it is, as opposed to fixing it from within. Furthermore, unlike these other women, Jordan isn't clingyshe lets Nick come to her. . Part of forgetting the past is forgetting the people that are no longer here, so for Wolfshiem, even a close relationship like the one he had with Gatsby has to immediately be pushed to the side once Gatsby is no longer alive. Note that even here, Nick still does not acknowledge his feelings of friendship and admiration for Gatsby. In one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. "Absolutely realhave pages and everything. I inquired. (7.314-5). And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. ", "That dog?" Jordan really doesn't care about other people, and she really can just shrug off seeing Myrtle's mutilated corpse and focus on whether Nick was treating her right. Check out our focused article for a much more in-depth analysis of what the crucial symbol of "the valley of ashes" stands for in this novel. Need to solidify your Great Gatsby essay with some evidence from the text? How much of what we see about Gatsby is colored by Nick's predetermined conviction that Gatsby is a victim whose "dreams" were "preyed on"? This speaks to Tom's entitlementboth as a wealthy person, as a man, and as a white personand shows how his relationship with Myrtle is just another display of power. Nick assumes that the word "it" refers to Gatsby's love, which Gatsby is describing as "personal" as a way of emphasizing how deep and inexplicable his feelings for Daisy are. (8.18-19). ", "That's an advertisement," Michaelis assured him. For one thing, the powerful gangster as a prototype of pulling-himself-up-by-his-bootstraps, self-starting man, which the American Dream holds up as a paragon of achievement, mocks this individualist ideal. I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited.
(1.17). Stand up now, and say How-de-do. In a way, this wish for her daughter to be a "fool" is coming from a good place. This line also sets the tone for the first few pages, where Nick tells us about his background and tries to encourage the reader to trust his judgment. In Chapter 5, the dream Gatsby has been working towards for yearsto meet and impress Daisy with his fabulous wealthfinally begins to come to fruition. Of course, since we know that Gatsby didn't actually run over Daisy, we can read this line in one of three ways: "And I like large parties. Like Jordan, Daisy is judgmental and critical. ", "I hope I never will," she answered. "Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?" And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. They are in the least showy room of their mansion, sitting with simple and unpretentious food, and they have been stripped of their veneer. "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. And so, for the first time, we see Gatsby's genuine emotions, rather than his carefully-constructed persona. "You were crazy about him for a while," said Catherine. ", "Don't be morbid," Jordan said. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Their honesty makes what they are doingconspiring to get away with murder, basicallycompletely transparent. This sounds like a humblebrag kind of observation. His devotion is so intense he doesn't think twice about covering for her and taking the blame for Myrtle's death.