Essay/Term paper: The great gatsby: tragedy from lies

Essay, term paper, research paper:  The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby: Tragedy From Lies


In the world people try to hide things from each other but one way or
another they find out what they are hiding. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott
Fitzgerald, the secrecy and deceit practiced by Jay, Daisy, and Myrtle leads to
inevitable tragedy when the truths are revealed.
Jay failed to realize that if you tell a lie most of the time they
tend to come to a boil and burst. For example, "My family have been prominent,
well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations."....pg.2
why did he have to lie when he knew that if they really got to know him they
would find out the truth. Jay gave everyone the impression that he was this kind
of rich-snobbish guy. Who knows why. It is not always good to lie. In Jay's case
when it came down to them finding out the truth they didn't know whether he was
telling the truth or lying. So it was hard for them to believe what he was
saying.
Daisy was another who would lie because she thought it would keep
happiness. The way she lied was different from Jay. She lied to keep the person
she thought was the love of her life, Tom happy. Daisy's relationship with TOm
was quite unusual. Tom was having an affair with Myrtle and Daisy really wanted
to be with Tom, but not really because she only did it because she thought she
had to. Daisy was really in love with Jay but because she felt like she had to
be in love with Tom she would make up lies to keep them together. Tom pretty
much felt the same way or he thought Daisy really liked him so he didn't want to
break her heart. But for them it didn't really work out well. If they would of
told each other their feelings and wouldn't of held them back from each other
they could of discussed their personnal situations and they might of had a nice
seperation. But since they chose to keep things back from each other and lie to
each other everything went terrible. For instance when the story about Jay and
Daisy was coming out she still wanted to keep it a secret so she said "Please
let's all go home. Why don't we all go home?"...pg.131 it was coming out but she
was still trying to keep things back from Tom. What Daisy failed to understand
was the lying was not helping at this point at all. In this conversation Daisy
continued lying saying "Why- how could I love him-possibly?"....pg. 132 when she
knew she loved him.
The largest of all lies was the Myrtle and Tom affair because everyone
in the story seemed to evolved around this issue. Alot of people didn't really
catch what was going on. Until Mr. Wilson found out, Myrtle's husband. He loved
her alot and he did not want to let her go so he locked her in the closet and
said "She's going to stay there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're
going to move away." ....pg.137 this is the kind of punishment she recieved
after she lied but he wasn't going to let her go. He was going to keep her
locked up until he got ready to move because she always talked about moving.
Otherwise she was going to try to run away with Tom. In the meantime Mrs. Wilson
(Myrtle) is screaming through the closet "Beat Me!"....pg. 138 as if he was the
one in the wrong not her.
In conclusion none of these lies were kept going for along time. Jay
eventually told the truth and got together with Daisy. Myrtle was ran over by
Gatsby's car and Mr. Wilson commited suicide. But lies always tend to collapse.
The secrecy and deceit that was practiced by all of these individuals all
collapsed and the truth was revealed