the great gatsby

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Corruption Conquers Faith:

An Analysis on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

By Sunil Mirpuri

IB English AII

Ms. S. Bartel

August 31st, 2006

Word Count: 1,874

Outline

Thesis: Fitzgerald, in his novel The Great Gatsby, portrays the corruption in the 20th century through his characters as well as the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg which lead the reader to believe that God, although He is referred to throughout the novel, is absent from the distorted society they live in.  

Body I.

  • Tom and Daisy embody certain morals and values which completely disregard God and religion. Tom Buchanon, for example, is racist, classist, and unfaithful.  
  • “‘Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’ by this man Goddard?’”(p. 17).
  • “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
  • Tom Buchanon, as well as Daisy, belongs to a “secret society” where only people of old, wealthy descent are admitted.
  • It is very odd to think that God is present in a society filled with corruption and immoral values where the wicked live prosperously.

Body II

  • The Great Gatsby, as he is referred to in the book, is probably the most controversial character when analyzing God’s influence in the 20th century society.
  • Gatsby had to perform several immoral and corrupt duties in order to reach the top of the ladder
  • “during one phase of American life brought back to the eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon” (p. 106).
  • “‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before’” (p. 98).
  • God, therefore, is completely absent from the novel when examining the Jay Gatsby’s actions and his influence on society itself.

Body II

  • Although the characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby embody several corrupted aspects, portraying the inexistence of God, the novel also contains a symbol and theme which emphasize on the fact of God’s absence from society.
  • “This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens…But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose.” (p. 28)
  • “Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away” (p. 28).
  • , “ ‘I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window…and I said God knows what you’ve been doing…You may fool me but you can’t fool God!’” Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg…” (p. 167).
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg and The Valley of Ashes to not only demonstrate God’s absence from society, but to prove that God is completely dead in the twentieth century.
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Corruption is a concept which has been directly correlated with human nature since the beginning of time. Human beings are creatures of intellect and consciousness when compared to any other life form on the planet. Nonetheless, corruption always seems to take over all that is logical and distort any consciousness that one may have. The 20th century, moreover, has demonstrated how deeply corruption has penetrated each and every human soul. The powerful influence of God and religion, which were once the ...

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