The Great Gatsby: The Destruction of Morals

In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the destruction of morals in society. The characters in this novel, all lose their morals in attempt to find their desired place in the social world. They trade their beliefs for the hope of being acceptance. Myrtle believes she can scorn her true social class in an attempt to be accepted into Ton's, Jay Gatsby who bases his whole life on buying love with wealth, and Daisy, who instead of marrying the man she truly loves, marries someone with wealth. The romance of money lures the characters in The Great Gatsby into surrendering their values, but in the end, "the streets paved with gold led to a dead end" (Vogue, December 1999).

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"In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago with more pomp and circumstance then Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars and hired a whole floor of the Seelbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars." (Fitzgerald, 80)

Right from the beginning Daisy had already had second thoughts about the marriage, getting completely drunk the night before and crying, but she went through with the marriage regardless. By not following her heart and marrying her true love, she abandoned her morals and married a man based on his wealth.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how the morals of society have been destroyed. The different characters each through their actions betray their morals to achieve a different status in society. Myrtle, a middle class, married woman, becomes immoral by having an affair in an attempt to join an upper social class. Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man who has earned his wealth through breaking the law as an effort to win back a lost love. And Finally Daisy, a woman who marries a man only because of his enormous wealth instead of a poorer man she truly loves. In the end, giving up their morals is useless, they each fail at achieving the status they