Characters in books can reveal the author feeling toward the world. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald suggested the moral decline of the period inAmerica history through the interpersonal relationships among hischaracters. The book indicates the worthlessness of materialism, thefutile quest of Myrtle and Gatsby, and how America’s moral values haddiminished. Despite his newly acquired fortune, Gatsby’s monitory meanscould not afford his only true wish, therefore he cannot buy everythingwhich is important to Daisy. (Fitzgerald, -page 42) What you wish for isnot always what you want or not all that glitters is gold.
The wild lavishness of Gatsby’s parties and the shallowness and purposelessness ofthe lives of the guests all kills Gatsby on the inside. All Gatsby wantswhen he chooses to be rich is to get Daisy. Daisy, who is wealthy andbeautiful, symbolizes a way of life which is remote from Gatsby’s andtherefore more attractive because it is out of reach so he changeshimself. (Fitzgerald, -page 54) Myrtle and Gatsby both want to be part ofthe same elite crowd. They play a reflection of each other in the book bywanting the same thing but they have different methods of achieving it.
Gatsby wants Daisy, and Myrtle just wants to be higher in society. Gatsbyplays the god-like character in this book so his means are good but bothhim and Myrtle do bad things to get higher in a crowd that will never takethem in. To make themselves appear better to the other crowd, they losesome of the moral fiber that was there to begin with. (Fitzgerald, -page83) Loss of morals in the 1920′ in America caused the American dream tovanish. The god-like character of the book was a good person but he did bad things like bootlegging and joining in organized crime.
Affairshappened in the elite crowd between Tom and Myrtle. Dishonesty reared itsugly head when Daisy killed Myrtle by running her over then blaming it onGatsby. This causes the deaths of three people. (Fitzgerald, -page 100)In summary Gatsby struggle to gain acceptance among his social class andfailed. He could not achieve the American dream or reach his dream for histrue love. He changed him self into saying stuff like old sport andother stuff to make him be into impure. The complicated struggle for classdistinction continued as his life was wasted.
