Taylor Cahoon
P-1
3/10/10
Great Gatsby Final Paper
In Fitzgerald’s novel everyone is involved with lies. Two of the worst liars in the
book would have to be Daisy and Tom Buchannon. They have built up a wall of lies
living a carefree life style pretending to be unaware of any problem in their relationship.
When Gatsby showed up into Daisy’s life things changed and the problem emerged to the
surface.
The reason that Daisy put up with her unhappiness was because Tom always
pampered her and bought her whatever she wanted. She knows that Tom is unfaithful to
her but never addresses the fact because she doesn’t feel the need to, why would she want
to ruin such a lavish lifestyle? She married Tom for security; Daisy was in love with
Gatsby but wouldn’t marry him because he was poor and didn’t have much to offer her.
Tom says that he loves his wife but always seems to have little “adventures”
with women where ever they live, which is why they always have to move around. He
would always give her some lame excuse about going into the city for some reason and
she would say she was going to see her sister when she would really go and stay across
from Nick’s house with Gatsby.
For a while their little escapades were successful and they never had many
problems. Tom would get to be with Daisy, his sweet, innocent, dull wife; then he’d get
to go off and spend weekends with Myrtle, a woman the exact opposite of Daisy, so
exuberant and full of life. Then Daisy would get to have Tom and Gatsby, two complete
opposites; Tom is a big strong athletic guy and Gatsby is a smaller more elegant looking
man.
It’s obvious that these two are unhappy with each other and have found some
one that they actually relate with. But they are scared of ending something so comfortable
and safe. They cheat on one another and lie about it all for their own self righteousness.
Out of the whole entire book I can honestly say that Tom and Daisy are the main culprits
of the negativity in story, they brought so much drama to such a happy life.
The one guy that deals with every all the drama of every event that takes place is
Nick. His judgment is well reserved about Daisy and her superficial ways because he
loves her regardless of her faulty but doesn’t think much of Tom. He already knows that
he is an arrogant, racist, sexist man; then to add on top of that he is a cheat. Nick just
knows that Daisy is bad enough off as it is and Tom isn’t a good guy that she needs to
satisfy her.
The two of them are running away from their problems. People can only change
who they are but so much and this couple is fighting a war that they can’t win and with
every episode that Daisy and Tom have just severs them emotionally even more than they
already were. All this does is make it that much easier for them to lie to each other. It
doesn’t matter though because Daisy is too scared to leave a life that she has grown to
become so fond of and Tom is just so insecure that he always needs a woman and having
Daisy as a nice trophy wife helps boost his masculine cover-up he uses to hide his true
character.
The whole story was about the depth of lying and its effects. You can’t have a
truly happy marriage with out trust. Having the American dream is impossible when you
do shady jobs and have to tell people false occupations. Lying can cost you everything,
you may lose loved ones or your whole world may be crushed in an instant; Nothing will
ever truly work out unless you’re honest and upfront.