Themes in The Great Gatsby
1. Corruption and wealth are closely related
a. Those who persistently pursue wealth are more susceptible to corruption.
i. “They are careless people...” (179)
ii. Gatsby in general, shady business (ALL PAGES!)
2. Don’t follow dreams because dreams are unrealistic
a. Separation of classes (always in action)
i. Gatsby was never happy. He never got out of his social class no matter how hard
he worked
ii. Tom and Daisy are careless people (179)
3. Power is fleeting
a. One can never maintain power. It’s always a struggle
i. “I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any
friends.” (130)
ii. “She’s not leaving me! Tom’s words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby.” (133)
4. Money is a medium of power that allows people to do what they want
a. Money is power
i. “Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back
into their money.” (179)
ii. “What do you want all the money for all of a sudden?... My wife and I want to
go west.” (123)
5. Striving for the best will never satisfy
a. Life is futile
i. The very last quote
ii. “Our procession of three cars reached the cemetery.” (174)
6. The importance of objects we achieve to obtain lose value once we possess them.
a. Gatsby with his wealth and Daisy before and after he got it
i. “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he
is dead” (172).
ii. “His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (93).
7. The lack of depth in the relationships developed by man during life determines how their
memory lives on after death.
a. Gatsby’s death and the lack of people that actually cared for him
i. “… if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end. You
may think that’s sentimental, but I mean it- to the bitter end” (171).
ii. “There was a long silence on the other end of the wire followed by an
exclamation… then a quick squawk as the connection” (175).
8. In relationships, core values and goals must be somewhat similar in order for it to suffice.
a. Relationship of Jordan and Nick vs. Tom and Daisy
i. “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (64).
ii. “… A suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final
round” (57).
iii. “They were careless people, tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and
creatures 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 (187-8).
9. Privilege breeds nostalgia for the past.
a. “’Civilization’s going to pieces,’ Broke out Tom violently. ‘ I’ve gotten to be a terrible
pessimist about things. Have you read ‘Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?’”
b. “I’m going to fix everything” (110)
10. Those who don’t work for what they have will never appreciate it.
a. Myrtle values the relationship more than Tom because of their different social statuses.
Tom can have any woman he wants while Myrtle might only have this chance to change
her situation.
11. The decline of the American dream in the 1920s
a. The 1920s fame and fortune is seen as an era of decayed social and moral values, and
the empty pursuit of pleasure.
i. “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope shell be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be
in this world, a beautiful little fool,” (17).
12. The Hollowness of the upper class
a. Wealth is a social barrier that leads the upper class to fill their emptiness with
materialistic things.
i. “Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? I haven’t made us of it
all summer,” (82).
13. Love is the ruin of ambition
a. Gatsby at first is a very ambitious person, but once he falls in love with Daisy his
ambitions are pushed to the side and his obsession with her overrules him. (This can
also be seen with Myrtle and Tom’s relationship).
i. Times Tables (173)
b. Nick sees through the other characters, and specifically Gatsby, that love is the ruin of
their ambition. Because of this, he ends up breaking up with Jordan.
i. Page 177
14. Appearance is a façade portraying how people want to be seen, not how they truly are.
a. On page 17, Daisy states, “Sophisticated-God I’m sophisticated!” Nick then reveals how
he “felt the basic insincerity of what she had said.”
b. On page 65, Gatsby tells Nick that he is “the son of some wealthy people in the Middle
West-all dead now.” In response, Nick states how he “knew why Jordan Baker had
believed he was lying.”
15. Don’t risk everything on the success of a single venture.
a. “But now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail” (149).
b. “If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price
for living too long with a single dream” (161).
c. “’When are you going to sell me that car?’ ‘Next week; I’ve got my man working on it
now.’ ‘Works pretty slow, don’t he?’”
16. The rich and poor are rendered the same by love and desire; however, the rich are powerful
enough to flee their transgressions while the poor are bound to their circumstance.
a. “I stared at [Wilson] and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an
hour before – and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in
intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and well” (131). This
can be interpreted as a comparison between rich and poor.
b. “I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go west” (130).
George never gets his desire, and is stuck in the Valley of Ashes until he dies.
c. “I called up Daisy, but she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken
baggage with them” (172). Tom and Daisy, on the other hand, flee the town at a
second’s notice.
17. Power becomes a vessel for double standards.
a. Many characters, including Tom B. are able to morally justify their own actions but
despise others who are doing the same thing, namely Daisy B. (double standards)
b. “I may be old-fashioned but women run around too much these days to suit me. They
meet all kinds of crazy fish” (103).
i. Tom constantly criticizes these actions of others while being a hypocrite himself.
c. “An hour later the front door opened nervously and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver
shirt, and gold colored tie, hurried in” (84).
i. Gatsby attempts to woo Daisy with his wealth even though he criticized her for
marrying Tom for money.
18. Money does not equal (or guarantee) happiness.
a. Tom has an affair with Myrtle, even though he’s married to Daisy, and truly happy
people wouldn’t cheat.
b. “His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her
and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomever he knew” (24).
c. “…expensive dog-leash made of leather and braided silver” (158).
19. Hierarchies cycle, with the mighty inevitably falling, and others taking their place.
a. Myrtle and Tom as the powerless people when Daisy and Gatsby’s love is
revealed
b. Daisy and George switch positions. George becomes more innocent even though
he kills Gatsby because he takes action via his passion (Became heroic), whilst
Daisy refused to take action and lost everything (Became Pathetic)
c. Nick grows in importance as he networks between the Buchanans and Gatsby
respectively (pg. 78).
d. Gatsby goes from mysterious (pg 44) to devious (pg 107) to pathetic (154) to
innocence (162).