Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents the themes of moral ambiguity and personal integrity by placing the characters in situations where they must make choices regarding how to act and what to do. This is difficult, because virtually all the characters in this novel have lost their moral compass. Some recognize it, some don't, and one thinks he is superior to the others, not noticing how many times he has compromised himself.

Jay Gatsby, the focus of Nick's story, was born James Gatz in the Midwest. His choice to make his name sound more refined turns his last name into "Gatsby," which phonetically says "Gatz -be." Gatsby is trying to be something he is not, and it does not bring him happiness.

Although Nick, the narrator and Gatsby's friend, has flaws he blind to, he is the only character who sees all of Jay Gatsby (Hermanson, p. 79). He sees an almost heroic side to Gatsby in his idealism. It is an odd thing in the book to see Gatsby, who made his money by bootlegging, as an idealist, but because of Nick's insight, the reader finds something to like about Jay Gatsby. In fact Gatsby has idealized Daisy so much that no woman could live up to his imagination. Gatsby's adoration of her clashes with her casual approach to love relationships, but Gatsby is blind to this fact (Hermanson, p. 79) Nick tells us of the impossibility of Gatsby's yearning for Daisy: "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- no through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion..." (p. 92). It was creative, because the Daisy Gatsby imagined was not really who Daisy was.

Nick is the narrator of the story, and has the advantage of having moved back to the Midwest and of telling the story two years after the events took place. This allows him to take in the whole picture and to see how events and people have interrelated. Nick is Daisy's cousin and went to school with her husband Tom, so even though he is not wealthy, he is accepted by Tom and Daisy. Even so, he is a bit of an outsider in the story, which enhances his ability to see the actions of others more clearly than if he had allowed himself to become close to all of them.

However, Nick has a sense of superiority about him that he doesn't entirely deserve. He doesn't approve of Tom's affair, and yet he helps him maintain it and even remains in Tom's New York City apartment while Tom and Myrtle make love in another room. In addition, he makes it easier for Gatsby and Daisy to slip away by keeping an eye on Tom (1). Nick is morally ambiguous, but thinks he is not. He pretends to a moral distance with the other people in the novel, but in fact spends a lot of time with them. He says he is fascinated by people, but he could have made other choices. While Nick holds himself to a higher standard than his friends do, these are the people he has chosen to spend his time with.

Nick demonstrates his moral ambiguity in another way when he gets involved with Jordan, a professional golfer. He knows that Jordan cheated in her first tournament,

Tom Buchanan acts in openly hypocritical ways. For instance, although he is being unfaithful to Daisy, when his mistress Myrtle Wilson repeats Daisy's name in a mocking way, he hits her so hard he breaks her nose (2). In spite of this, Tom thinks he represents moral rightness. Early in the book he says, "Civilization's going to pieces... I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read the Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard?" Tom is certain that his strenght, as an ex-football player, and his money, give him the right to dominate the people around him, and he does. He sees nothing wrong with this, and yet stands ready to judge the rest of society. To Tom, integrity is making sure that Tom gets what Tom wants and can push away anything he does not want or like.

Daisy Fay Buchanan is the great love of Jay Gatsby's life. However, just as all the other characters have blind spots, Gatsby is blind to Daisy's weaknesses and sees only the 17-year-old Southern belle he had fallen hopelessly in love with five years ago. Daisy is shallow. She rejects Gatsby when he is poor and has few prospects, but five years later when he is wealthy and gives lavish parties, she accepts his attention.

At 2 Samuels, Daisy shifts with the wind, or more accurately, according to the people she is with. She seems to have no center, no core, and no deepness. The almost incredible shallowness of Daisy is shown in a variety of speeches and actions. On page 22 she says, with a smirk, " I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything...Sophisticated -- God, I'm sophisticated!"

Sometimes Daisy seems to realize that she is just drifting through life. On page 113 she says, "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon... And the day after that, and the next thirty years?" In spite of this, however, she is willing to settle for shallow days and nights, a shallow relationship with her husband, and a dalliance with Gatsby that means far more to Gatsby than it does to Daisy.

However, nothing shows Daisy's lack of character more than the death of Myrtle Wilson. Daisy is driving the car recklessly and at a high rate of speed. Daisy has the choice of striking another car and risking injury to herself, or swerving to avoid that accident. In swerving, she hit Myrtle, and she did so to save herself (Samuels, p. 81). In addition, Gatsby is ready and willing to say he was the driver, and although Nick sees through the ruse immediately, Daisy is willing to let Gatsby take the blame.

The imagery of eyes that do not see highlights the moral ambiguity and lack of personal integrity throughout the novel. Eyes are figured throughout the book. In many cases they are unseeing eyes, such as the giant eyeglasses on the billboard in the "valley of ashes." They have huge pupils, but stare out taking nothing in. This is a characteristic shared by all of the major characters. They see neither themselves nor each other clearly.

A form of blindness results in Gatsby's tragic end: George Wilson, convinced that it was Gatsby who was driving the car that killed his wife Myrtle and not Daisy, seeks Gatsby out at his house. Finding Gatsby floating in his pool, he shoots him dead. This is an act of moral ambiguity; while it is always wrong to kill another person, the reader sympathizes with Wilson's grief. He has what might be called a good reason for shooting Gatsby, making the act less evil than it otherwise would be.

In an ironic twist, when George Wilson sees the giant, unseeing eyes behind spectacles that make no vision correction as he holds his dead wife's body, he imagines that they are the all-seeing eyes of God urging him to avenge his wife's death. Except for his wife's tragic death, George might have been the one person of integrity in the novel. He worked hard, supported his wife, and reacted with appropriate outrage when he realized she had been having an affair with Tom Buchanan. He had planned to send her away, but her death brought him a larger view of their relationship, and he grieved for her. Even George Wilson is tainted by the moral ambuities of others by the end of the book. He is so enraged by the way she died, with the driver not even stopping to try to help her, that he determines that God wants him to kill the driver. If this event had not happened, George would have known that murder for any reason was wrong. George, however, has been blinded by grief.