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Betrayal in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby”

Jasmine Williams

November 7, 2014

English 3 4^th Pd.

                                     Betrayal in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby”

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. It is recognized as the “Great American Novel” as it shows great wealth, partying, jazz music and many other aspects of the “American Dream”. In his novel he shows a lot of symbols, and themes including wealth, greed, and the most vivid, betrayal. Betrayal can upset people and ruin many people. Betrayal was demonstrated throughout the entire novel with a lot of connections. Betrayal plays an important role in F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby. The first part of betrayal takes place in Tom’s betrayal of Daisy. Tom betrays his wife Daisy when he has an affair with a woman named Myrtle. Tom was ignoring the sanctity of their marriage and having an affair with a woman who is also married. Not only is this wrong but Tom is now destroying everything he and Daisy has built together. They have a child together and this affair could potentially tear their family apart. Tom’s disloyal and guilt free ways allows him to have an affair without feeling any regret. Tom’s betrayal caused Daisy to see nothing wrong with her betraying Tom. Daisy, like her husband, has an affair but, she cheats on Tom with Gatsby. She slowly started to lose faith in humanity and starts to see the world as a bad place. She wishes for her daughter not to see the world as a bad place, she hopes for her daughter to grow up naïve and clueless she wishes for her to see the world as a happy place and not the reality and cruel place. When she says “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” Tom’s betrayal made Daisy think this way. Nothing good came of Tom’s betrayal. It caused Daisy to change her whole outlook on life and impacted her in a very negative way. When you cheat on someone you love nothing good can come and this is proved in Tom’s betrayal.  The second piece of betrayal that takes place is Jay Gatsby betraying himself. Growing up Jay always tried to become a better man. After Gatsby died his dad found a list of things he had made to improve himself day by day. Gatsby was capable of many great things he instead did what would make other people happy with him. His dream was to be with the girl he loves most and that girl is Daisy. Every wrong choice Gatsby made was made in the intentions of impressing Daisy or doing what other people wanted of him. He was a bootlegger, and he would throw extravagant parties using the bootlegged booze hoping for Daisy to be impressed. Gatsby wanted nothing more than to turn back time to when he and Daisy were in love. Nothing but, trouble came of Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy. He wasted time chasing Daisy and only cheated himself. Gatsby’s betrayal of himself led to his own death. Instead of doing great things and following his plan he took the blame for one of Daisy’s big mistakes, which led to his down fall. The final betrayal presented in the novel is Daisy’s betrayal of Gatsby. Daisy always knew how Gatsby felt about her but never took an interest to him. Her feelings began to change for him once she realized his wealth.  Daisy led Gatsby to believe she loved him again and that they would be together forever, when Tom confronted Gatsby about the affair the truth came out. Gatsby accused Daisy of never loving Tom but Daisy admitted that this was not true. Daisy told Gatsby of her love for Tom she says “I did love him once” Gatsby was shocked to hear that and he grew the feeling of betrayal towards Daisy. Gatsby was under the impression that Daisy loved him all along and never Tom. After this incident Daisy ignored Gatsby and no longer came to visit. She betrayed him by completely cutting him out of her life while leading him to believe she was In love with him again. Daisy also betrayed Gatsby by never admitting to Tom that she was the one who hit Myrtle with the car. All the blame fell upon Gatsby once. Myrtle’s husband, Mr. Wilson demanded that he get his revenge and this brought him to kill Gatsby. Daisy’s betrayal of Gatsby led to his death. Daisy never cared enough to even ever admit to what she did even after he had died. Daisy also neglected to come to Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy’s many betrayals of Gatsby ultimately led to his untimely death. As I’ve stated before betrayal plays an important role in this novel.