Betrayal in the Great Gatsby Essay

It is common knowledge that everyone lies and hurts others to some extent. In The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan lies to, and betrays, many people for his own gain. Betraying someone and getting rid of their trust will never be worth the consequences that will have to be dealt with later on. Tom represents betrayal and corruption in distinct ways throughout the novel The Great Gatsby. In the first three chapters of the book, The Great Gatsby, Tom shows betrayal and corruption, by breaking Myrtle's nose.

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. In his novel, he displays a lot of symbols, and themes including wealth, greed, and of course, betrayal. Betrayal can upset many people and ruin many people. Betrayal was demonstrated throughout the entire novel with a lot of connections. Three situations I had talked about were Gatsby betrayed by Daisy, Tom cheating on Daisy with Myrtle and when no one attends Gatsby’s funeral.

The Great Gatsby is a timeless classic, high schools all across America read the story and delve into its passages for hidden messages and dig into Fitzgerald’s own words to uncover what it all truly means. Many of the themes and ideas in The Great Gatsby are reflected in Fitzgerald's life, such as his on-again-off-again marriage to his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, and close relationship with fellow writer, Ernest Hemingway, to his own troubles with alcohol and mental health. One of those themes is love and betrayal, which F. Scott Fitzgerald displays in The Great Gatsby through the various relationships and affairs between Tom, Daisy, Myrtle and Jay. Tom and Daisy Buchanan have evidently the most perplexing relationship in the novel, however,

The worst part of a betrayal is that it usually comes from a friend rather than an enemy. In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Milkman goes on an adventure to find the roots of his family history. While on his quest, Milkman learns and experiences betrayal from his long time friend, Guitar, who misunderstands Milkman’s objective. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby undergoes a series of betrayals from Daisy throughout his life. Gatsby’s love for Daisy blinds him from her acts of betrayal, which eventually leads Gatsby to his death. In Song of Solomon, the relationship between Milkman and Guitar deteriorates due to Guitar’s excessive desire for money and revenge. This is paralleled in The Great Gatsby where Daisy use Gatsby’s love and wealth to seek revenge on Tom.

In the final few chapters we finally get to see Gatsby’s true colors. We see that Gatsby is expressing love towards Daisy when they all decide to go to New York for the day. Tom becomes suspicious and accuses Gatsby of having an affair with his wife and also being a bootlegger. Gatsby tells Tom that he and Daisy love one another and that they are going to be together like they once were in the past. Gatsby was wrong and Daisy ends up staying with Tom. Myrtle Wilson is then ran over by Daisy but Gatsby says that he will take the blame and ends up getting shot. At the beginning of this novel we thought that Gatsby was a well liked, popular guy, but it turns out that no one shows up to attend his funeral.

Myrtle, the wife of George Wilson, is having an affair with Tom Buchanan. Despite the way Tom treats her and that she is aware of his marital status, she still is in a sense hopeful in regards to their “relationship.” Jordan Baker, Daisy’s close friend in the novel, is initially introduced as a fraudulent woman, “She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage…” (Fitzgerald 58).

The definition of betrayal is- “to be unfaithful, or to disappoint the hopes or expectations of someone.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, you encounter varying degrees of betrayal. From a forbidden love affair, Daisy and Gatsby fight for their lost love until a sacrifice has to be made. While Myrtle is unhappy with her lower class life and hard working husband George, she admires Daisy’s lavish life, more specifically her husband Tom. Lastly, we come to Tom and Daisy; they are married, have a beautiful daughter, come from old money, and in their time, are considered to be living the dream. However, behind closed doors life isn’t as amazing. During the 1920’s, people lived life recklessly, and society warped people’s minds which left them broken and unaccepted.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides a dark and pessimistic outlook into the American life style in 1922. Jay Gatsby, an American wealthy social identity, appears to have it all. But wealth, stature and an extravagant lifestyle seems not to be enough for Gatsby; he still yearns for his old idealistic love Daisy. In an ideal world this has the making of a great love story with a happy ending, but Fitzgerald chose to carry the story as a reflection of the American era the book is set in. An era consumed by appearances and excess and overall pursuit of the American dream.

“Another form of dishonesty and disloyalty is infidelity, which pervades the novel. Almost every couple is affected by this. In Chapter 1 we learn that Tom has ‘got some woman in New York’ and find out later that he is a serial womaniser,” (Adamson). Tom Buchanan is the leader of the disloyal, guilt-free class. He does not take anyone else’s feelings into consideration, specifically Daisy. “I thought everybody knew.’ ‘I don’t.’ ‘Why--’ she said hesitantly, ‘Tom’s got some woman in New York.’ ‘Got some woman?’ I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. ‘She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think,” (Fitzgerald 15)? Fitzgerald writes of Tom’s many woman and eludes to him having affairs as the cause of the Buchanans moving to East Egg. As he takes on any woman that is available, he never thinks of Daisy’s feelings once, who has not been unfaithful before

The Great Gatsby starts in around the time nineteen twenty with the narrator named Nick Carraway. He finds out a lot of information about Jay Gatsby after the first party he went to. As a reader, you find out that one of the themes form the Great Gatsby that I thought was very interesting was betrayed. Betrayal was a tremendous theme in the Great Gatsby. Betrayal is a tremendous theme in The Great Gatsby because of family, marriage, and time. F.Scott Fitzgerald puts betrayal in the book so much that a lot of the book is about Tom and Daisy and how Gatsby loves Daisy so much. Gatsby even betrayed his own family for Daisy and his love for Daisy.

The definition of Betrayal is- “To be unfaithful, or to disappoint the hopes or expectations of someone.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, novel The Great Gatsby, you encounter varying degrees of betrayal. From a forbidden love affair, Daisy and Gatsby fight for their lost love until a sacrifice has to be made. While Myrtle is unhappy with her lower class life and hard working husband George, she admires Daisy’s lavish life, more specifically her husband Tom. Lastly, we come to Tom and Daisy; they are married, have a beautiful daughter, come from old money, and in their time, are considered to be living the dream. However, behind closed doors life isn’t as amazing. During the 1920’s, people lived life recklessly, and society warped people’s minds which left them broken and unaccepted.

In this chapter Gatsby, Nick, and Miss Baker go to Toms for lunch, this moment is where Daisy is suppose to tell tom she never loved him and she loves Gatsby, but Daisy gets nervous and angers tom into going to town, Tom takes Gatsby’s car with Nick and Jordan, Gatsby and Daisy take toms coupe. Since Gatsby’s car is running low on gas, they stop at Wilson’s garage where Tom finds both his wife and mistress are leaving him. While in New York where they rent a room, daisy try’s to tell tom she never loved him but the attempt failed. Then tom and Gatsby get into a big argument where tom confronts Gatsby and tells him he found out who he really is ( A Bootlegger). Gatsby gets frustrated and yells, this is where Daisy gets scared and starts drawing away, Tom tells her to leave with Gatsby’s and that he won’t annoy her anymore. Then after a while Tom leaves with Nick and Jordan back home, on the way they find that Myrtle has been run over by Gatsby’s car. Since he was driving Gatsby’s car earlier, Wilson believes Tom did it. Tom explains he just borrowed it and lies about not seeing it all afternoon. When they get home, Nick finds Gatsby and finds out that it was not him but Daisy who ran myrtle over. Gatsby asks Nick to check on daisy, when nick checks he finds Tom talking at Daisy probably plotting something. Nick keeps to himself, tells Gatsby everything’s ok and leaves him there spying on the

The Great Gatsby is a novel written during the realism period. The book was published in 1925. F Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel based in the roaring twenties about two star crossed lovers who go behind their loved ones backs to have an affair . It is full of lies and deceit. A recurring theme in The Great Gatsby is love and how it destroys and ruin one's life and how you can never be fully satisfied by love. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship has a series of ups and downs where they lie to each other and neither of them ever being happy .Fitzgerald uses the two lovers to express his point of view on love.

   The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about one man's disenchantment with the American dream. In the story we get a glimpse into the life of Jay Gatsby, a man who aspired to achieve a position among the American rich to win the heart of his true love, Daisy Fay. Gatsby's downfall was in the fact that he was unable to determine that concealed boundary between reality and illusion in his life.

F.Scott Fitzgerald has many themes in his novel, “The Great Gatsby”. One theme he presents in his novel is lies and deceit. This theme is developed throughout his entire novel by expressing it in the character traits of each character in the book, as well as with their actions. There is a number of literary devices that describe the physical and emotional standpoints of the characters. The elements reveal what the characters are truly like to themselves and to others.