However, Adultery is not limited to Tom as seen by Gatsby’s and Daisy’s affair. Their affair was also fairly public as seen by Daisy and Gatsby embracing, despite Tom only being a few feet away. It is no coincidence that the 2nd affair in the novel is from the same couple, therefore showing the recklessness of the aristocratic upper classes in their almost thoughtless desire for passion which ultimately leads to them to become adulterers. Fitzgerald captured this by ensuring that both Daisy and Tom were simultaneously holding separate affairs despite being together. Tom after finding out about Gatsby’s affair with his wife stated “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr Nobody from nowhere make love to my wife”, this is ironic since Tom’s scorn for Gatsby, is not due solely to jealousy but to Gatsby’s background and lack of status. Adultery is almost trivialised in the novel, which was done to highlight the moral and spiritual decay in American society during the 1920’s, and the commonplace nature of adulteries, due to more liberal attitudes towards women emerging.
The Great Gatsby also has quite a decent share of deception in the novel. Almost every character presented to us as multi sided and is involved in some form of dishonest act or deception. Jordan Baker is immediately presented as being possible dishonest due to her involvement in a sporting scandal. The deception also extends to the narrator of the novel – Nick, he is presented as being a possibly unreliable and untrustworthy source, since despite claiming that he is “one of the few honest people” that he’d known and claiming to “reserve all judgements”, he disproved this through blatantly judging other characters and omitting to tell us certain scandalous truths about his life by filtering the information he gives us through the narrative. We can see this in chapter two, where Nick’s possible homosexuality is hinted at but not fully disclosed, he states. “...I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a portfolio in his hands”, this tells us that the narrator is very unreliable and possibly might be deceiving us by omitting to disclose certain pieces of information.
However, the greatest deception in the novel is Gatsby himself since his entire persona and character has been carefully orchestrated to present grandeur and class, even his name ‘Jay Gatsby’ and the history which he invented for himself was a sham made as an attempt to escape all remnants of his impoverished past and to also attract Daisy. The very title of the book ‘The Great Gatsby’ is an allusion of notable magic acts such as ‘The Great Houdini’ etc which is very symbolic and tells us of Gatsby attempt to create a new image being very similar to a grand sideshow act or illusion by a master magician, so Gatsby himself is the ultimate deceiver and through the character that he builds for himself, is also the greatest deception.
Murder however, plays a relatively small part in the play, so it would be wrong to claim that Gatsby is a ‘sordid tale’ of murder, since there is only one true instance of murder- being Wilson’s execution of Gatsby, whilst Daisy’s killing of Myrtle- although being gruesome, was not intentional so therefore cannot be seen as murder. However it can be argued that since the second killing is closely linked to the first, Daisy is then ultimately responsible for Gatsby’s death and therefore his murder.
Overall, although it might be true to an extent that The Great Gatsby is in fact a sordid tale of adultery, deception and murder, however it’s not fair to restrict the story to only this three features, since the novel could also be about love. Love is the main driving force behind both Gatsby’s success and downfall. His love for Daisy caused him to change himself and become a wealthy person, and it was this same love that inevitably caused his downfall since he chose to take blame for Myrtles killing, and was subsequently killed as a result of it. Which forces me to conclude that despite being to some extent a tale of adultery, deception and murder, it is also a tale of love which can be seen as being at the epicentre of the action and the eventual tragedy of Gatsby.
by
lilzoldier (student)
