The Great Gatsby: Everyone is Guilty
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fantastic commentary on the wealthy and the moral corruption that ensues.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is an American classic that has captivated readers for decades. While the story is set in the Roaring Twenties, a time of glamour and excess, it is also a direct commentary on the elite and how their pursuit of wealth can lead to moral deterioration. A powerful metaphor of guilt is presented that underscores the corrosive effect of the wealthy class. Fitzgerald explores the corrupting influence of money and power, as characters are shown to be consumed by their own greed and self-interest: no one is the moral good.
Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is set in the fictional town of West Egg (representing new money) and centers around the enigmatic millionaire Jay [The Great] Gatsby, who has created his own world filled with excess and extravagance. The narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, is drawn into Gatsby’s world of lavish parties and sparkling personalities, only to discover the dark underbelly of the elite.
The New York elite, those belonging to the East Egg (old money), are depicted as morally bankrupt. They engage in illegal activities and lie and manipulate to get what they want.
“They smashed up things…and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
This is exemplified by Tom Buchanan, a wealthy aristocrat who embodies their worst aspects. He is unfaithful to his wife, cruel to those around him, and has no qualms about using his wealth and power to manipulate others. The wealthy are shown as reckless and self-serving. They’re guilty: “the whole lot of” them.
Gatsby is both a victim but also guilty of this corruption.
“No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short winded elations of men.”
Gatsby, whose roots began in the impoverished rural Midwest to achieving self-made wealth in New York, has his entire existence revolve around the pursuit of wealth and status. He throws lavish parties in an attempt to impress the elite of New York society, hoping that one day, he will be accepted as one of them. However, this desire leads him to engage in illegal activities (such as bootlegging); he becomes complicit in their corruption.
Gatsby was a dreamer, an idealist; he reinvented himself to fit the mold of the adorned-in-gold champagne-drinkers.
On the outside, Gatsby had it all: money, reputation, fame. But the novel reveals that nothing is ever as it seems. Abandoned by his faithful friends and business partners in trust and killed covering for someone who didn’t value him, Gatsby was thrown away and removed from memory as quickly as he was used.
The coruscate beautiful façade of the American Dream is exposed; it’s fake; it’s a myth; it’s not real.
Like Gatsby, the dreamers who arrive in the new world — afloat by the aspiration of a brighter future and the conviction that hard work will lead to success — are prisoners of their past and will continue to claw in vain towards a goal that moves beyond their reach. The chase becomes the fall.
Gatsby is an example of breaking the class ceiling: anyone, regardless of background or class, can reach wealth and success. However the barrier to that was, regardless of how much money Gatsby has, the old money elite would never accept him. Gatsby exposes the American Dream as just that — a dream — one he whole-heartedly believed in.
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . .So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Nick initially views the wealthy elite with admiration and fascination, specifically looking at Gatsby (and Gatsby alone) through a pair of rose-tinted glasses.
However, as he becomes more involved in their world, he is disgusted. He hates it; he despises it.
Nick experienced the true selfishness, vanity, and uncaring nature of man and he wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
Not only that, Nick also realizes that he too is complicit in their corruption; he is guilty.
“And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on.”
This quote underscores Nick’s disillusionment of how the elite’s decadent lifestyle has a profound impact on his own moral compass. He was able to overlook their questionable behavior, however he has reached a breaking point where he can no longer tolerate their moral corruption. The phase “hard rock or the wet marshes” suggests that Nick believes one’s behavior can be established on solid foundation or a more unstable one, but his tolerance has reached its limit regardless of the foundation.
His “admission” that his previous boasting of tolerance was misguided; he is now forced to confront the extent of their moral erosion.
And yet, even Nick — the novel’s wallflower — is not exempt from this; he is a part of the upper class; his family created their wealth through arguably unethical means bribing someone to take his grandfather’s place in the Civil War. It is almost ironic that Nick sees New York high society as morally decaying and repulsive, yet he is a product of and enjoys the benefits of that moral decay in practice.
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
A powerful critique of the excesses of the wealthy that remains relevant even today, the Great Gatsby truly does deliver the message: everyone is guilty.
