Many authors use irony as a way of questioning the reader or emphasizing a central idea. A literary device, such as irony, can only be made simple with the help of examples. Irony can help a reader to better understand certain parts of a novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald helps the reader to recognize and understand his use of irony by giving key examples throughout The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s lush parties, Myrtle’s death, Gatsby’s death, and the title of the novel to demonstrate how irony plays a key role in the development of the plot. Gatsby displays his new money by throwing large, extravagant parties. The old money establishment of East Egg think Gatsby does this to show off his new money, but his motif is different. Jordan …show more content…
(Kellman 782) Another prime example explaining how Gatsby thinks money can win over Daisy’s love. Daisy is born and raised into money so she has a clearer view on Gatsby’s wealth and does not buy into it. She understands the value of money in American society and Gatsby admits it when he states, “Her voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald 93). Ironically she is a more realistic, hard headed character and is not deceived by Gatsby’s games (Kellman 782). Gatsby’s lush parties are not the only example of irony that propels the plot forward. The death of Myrtle Wilson also presents an ironic twist. Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George, and the lover of Tom Buchanan, is brutally murdered toward the end of the novel. After an uncivilized afternoon in New York, Daisy and Gatsby head swiftly back to East Egg. Gatsby explains to Nick, “It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew” (Fitzgerald 109). Myrtle ran out toward the car looking for Tom but sadly for her it is not him. Many know about Tom’s affair, but not with whom he is having it, especially Daisy. Daisy never slows the car down, and she never realizes who she hits. This shows that Daisy is oblivious to Myrtles existence. Myrtle is sleeping with her husband, she ruins their marriage, and Daisy kills her. The irony exists in this because Daisy actually saves her marriage by killing
His actions show that he is not loyal nor respectful towards Daisy, instead displaying apathy and disinterest. In addition to acting uncompassionate towards Daisy, he is also not taking into consideration Myrtle’s feelings. In fact, he lies to her in order to stop himself from being forced into a committed relationship. This lie that Tom tells Myrtle is not only extremely false, but also shows he is simply using her. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce” (Fitzgerald 33). Tom lying to Myrtle shows he has no intention of marrying her, instead he only wants to take advantage of her vulnerable state. Myrtle is unhappy and desperate to fulfill her dream of moving up social classes. Instead of acting sympathetically towards her situation, he exploits her weakness. Likewise, Daisy and Gatsby’s affair shows similar exploitation for one’s own personal needs over the emotions of their counterpart. Without Tom’s knowledge, Daisy has an affair with her long lost love, Gatsby. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour… (Fitzgerald 105). During this affair Daisy shows no acknowledgement of Tom’s feelings, the man she married and pledged to be loyal to. At the same time, she is also exploiting Gatsby. Authors say, “...his desire to marry Daisy as an attempt to enter/create
The narrator Nick goes into detail about the history and the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby. Gatsby and Daisy meet while Gatsby is in the army, Daisy growing up wealthy and Gatsby a poor young man has no right being with her, Gatsby gives Daisy a sense of security and they have a short relationship. One night when they are together they kiss and Fitzgerald writes, “She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (Fitzgerald 150). While poor people are struggling in life, Fitzgerald refers Daisy to money. Throughout Daisy’s life she doesn't experience, struggles and instead lives a life with money that gives her anything she wants. Gatsby on the other hand is poor and sees what money gives you, Gatsby sees that money puts someone above people like him. In reality Daisy isn't living a life she appears to be, she is using men in the army to fill her void of loneliness, if she doesn't have money the men wouldn't all be in love with her. She puts herself as a prized possession for them to have because she has money. Daisy at a young age, and when she gets older uses her money to assert herself over others.
In the end of the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Myrtle Wilson was struck by an automobile and killed. There were many questions being asked about who had killed her. At the time, three people knew the truth. The others just heard rumors. Everyone speculated that it was Mr. Gatsby when it was really Daisy Buchanan who killed Myrtle. Mr. Gatsby was killed by Myrtle’s husband, George Wilson because he thought Gatsby killed his wife. Tom Buchanan is responsible for Mr. Gatsby’s death because of his relationship with Myrtle, his actions towards Mr. Gatsby and Daisy, and his conversation with Mr. Wilson and the Police Officer.
“Free spirits evolved thru the war chaos and a final inevitable escape from restraint and inhibitions”(sanderson, 90). The fact that Myrtle is ”Tom Buchanan’s mistress”(Chapter 2, page 16) is enough to harm Daisy. “A moment later she rushed into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting; before he could move from his door the business was over.”(Chapter 7, Page 103). Earlier that day Tom was driving in Gatsby’s car and Gatsby was in Tom’s car. Myrtle thought that when Gatsby and Daisy was coming down the road, that it was Tom so she tried to get his attention but daisy was driving and just ran into her. When Tom told George whose car hit Myrtle, George went to Gatsby’s house and shot Gatsby. That is how Myrtle’s actions hurt George, Gatsby, and
Then, Barack did love basketball, and he tried his best to be cool at all times. One day in the early spring both were met and begun walked the direction of the stone bench at Punahou’s campus. That place was called the senior bench. A few month were passed, Barack has gathered books from the library like Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright, etc. Barack has wrestler with words and suddenly desperate some argument and tried to reconcile the worlds as he did found it with the terms of his birth. Then, every book has given much information and Bigger Thomas has called as an invisible man. Then, Barack had kept found the same doubt like a self-contempt that neither irony nor intellect seemed able to deflect. Then, Baldwin’s love and Langston’s humors
The relationship between Tom and Myrtle was different from Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Tom, described with physical strength, has his history, abilities, and sensuality that make him right. On the other hand, his wife, Daisy comes out to be the weakest character from a reader’s point of view, because people ask her for a lot (“Great”, Scott). Tom always claimed that he was deeply in love with Daisy, but every chance he had to leave town he went and slept with Myrtle Wilson. She knew Tom was married but that did not stop her from loving him.
Similarly to Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson has a secret lover by her side. She works as a mistress and her employer and lover Tom keeps her as a part of his false, double life. Although, Myrtle has a loving, caring husband, her desire of moving up the social ladder leads her into an affair with Tom. She only looks at a man as a way of getting what she wants: “The only crazy I was was when I married him.” This quote occurs when Myrtle talks to Tom about why she marries the person that she does not care about. In a like manner, Daisy has problematic relationships with men. Daisy's reaction to both men is that, she loves both Jay Gatsby and her husband Tom. Even though her love for Gatsby lasts for a “long time” and is "true," as she marries
Daisy and Myrtle’s duplicity is utilized in the novel as a tool to negatively portray women. Firstly, Myrtle deceives her husband. This is exhibited when Tom says that George “thinks she goes to see her sister in New York” (29). This quotation is spoken by Tom to Nick, after Tom decides that he, Nick and Myrtle are going to spend the afternoon at his apartment. Tom explains that the reason for which he and Myrtle have been able to continue their relationship so secretly, is due to this lie that Myrtle tells her husband, George Wilson. This statement plainly demonstrates Myrtle’s constant lies and duplicitous behaviour towards her husband. Thus, Myrtle’s unfaithfulness and duplicity, especially her resulting disregard for her husband’s feelings,
On the day of Daisy’s wedding, she gets a letter from Gatsby and almost calls off her marriage to Tom. However, she goes on with the wedding, thus slipping from Gatsby’s grasp. The most extreme and heartbreaking loss of love is also a loss of life. While driving home after their eventful day in the city, Daisy hits Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, with Gatsby’s car. Myrtle's husband becomes convinced that Gatsby was the one who killed her, which results in the death of Gatsby, who is shot by Wilson, “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilsons body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete” (Fitzgerald 162).
Myrtle seems to be the opposite of Daisy, but she provides Tom with an escape. Her husband, George, owns the gas station that Tom goes to, and he does not realize until the end of the story that she is having an affair. She picks her Tom over George. This throws him off the edge . Myrtle attempts to run away from George but is hit by Daisy, while she is driving Gatsby 's car.
The book uses a lot of irony to show gatsby longing for his ideal dream of daisy yet never being able to achieve no matter how close he is. Daisy wanted Gatsby but never could have him because he didn't think he was good enough for her.Tom, Daisy’s husband, was almost always with myrtle because he believes that Daisy was never enough to
Myrtle had a very rich lifestyle; she loved to wear expensive clothes and have expensive items. Myrtle had a hard time to fulfill her expensive lifestyle because George Wilson was very poor. To solve this problem she began to date Tom and she fell in love with his money. Tom would buy her anything she asked for and kept it at their apartment, “I want to get one of those dogs...I want to get one for the apartment” (Fitzgerald 31). Fitzgerald showed the readers having an affair for the money will not end well. When George discovered Myrtle having an affair, as a loving husband would, accused her of the affair. Myrtle screamed at Mr. Wilson, “Beat me. Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward” (Fitzgerald 144). The termination of Tom and Myrtle’s affair was when Myrtle was killed by the intoxicated Daisy after this
Before reading the novel The Great Gatsby I had already had an idea of what type of person Gatsby was going to be. Just from the word great it is portrayed that Gatsby is a glorious individual, or if you look at some of the synonyms for great it can soon turn to the meaning of something being catastrophic. Only after reading the novel did I come to realize that the title is actually ironic and many themes help build the “glorious” Gatsby character. To understand the title of the Great Gatsby you must know that irony is the key. Many of the novel's themes give the impression of mocking the Jay Gatsby characters “greatness”. I have learned that the author Fitzgerald himself at first did not want to name the book Great Gatsby, so it makes me
The constant references to sex and technology support the book’s purpose of satirizing society. The most interesting passage, in my opinion, occurs on page 53 when Lenny admires that the children speak expressively, an action that contrasts with the “dense clickety-clack äppärät world of their absorbed mothers and missing fathers”. The science-fiction äppärät facilitates the discussion of the pertinent social issues of parent irresponsibility and absence. On the other hand, the sexual content suggests the increasingly superficial state of relationships, both in the novel and in the real world. The expectation is that people should seek out many surface-level romantic relationships, evidenced by the quote “Start with the women that you’ve done
Myrtle and Tom have a secret affair together. Tom Buchanan, the husband of Daisy, who is also a millionaire, cheats on his wife. Myrtle Wilson is married to a man named George Wilson. Myrtle is in the working class and Tom is in the rich class. Tom has money from his family’s business. Since Tom is rich, he is able to fulfill Myrtle’s wants and desires. Due to this Myrtle is spoiled by Tom’s materialistic items. One day, Tom and Myrtle go out to the city, and their Myrtle comments, “ I want to get one of those dogs… I’d like to get one of those police dogs” (Fitzgerald 27). Without thinking, Tom buys her the dog she wants. Myrtle sees that Tom was giving her everything she asks. With greed, she asks Tom to divorce his wife Daisy. Tom lies to Myrtle and tells her why he can not divorce.