Crystal Espinoza

Mr. Kendall
CP English 3
8 May 2014
Symbolism and Theme- The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby, a story written by Scott F. Fitzgerald is taken place in
the early twenties. The story is told by the character of Nick Carraway, who
also happens to be Gatsbys neighbor. Nick is more of an invisible character
who sees everything but is inclined to reserve all judgements. In both the
book and the movie we are shown the themes of and symbols of the story.
The themes ranging from love to wealth, but the most important one
happens to be the lies and deceit told by the characters and how their lives
are affected by their decisions.
First, we are introduced to a married couple Tom and Daisy Buchanan.
Tom and Daisy are from the same world meaning that they both came from a
background of money and from the upper class of society. As we are shown
in both the book and the movie the Buchanans marriage was unstable. It
was unstable because they married each other without having interest in one
another. This is shown when we are introduced to Toms mistress Myrtle.
Myrtle is a married woman and is also in an unstable marriage. Although
Daisy is aware of Toms mistress she does not leave him because from the
beginning of their marriage they agreed that they will not get a divorce.
These couples give an example of marrying for wealth and not for love.

Next, wealth seems to be the lifestyle of everybody in this time period.

And from the start of the story we as the readers get a negative impression
of the upper class, as being arrogant. For example Gatsby spends a large
amount of money to hold parties but he does not seem to enjoy them, he is
more concerned in letting people know how rich he is, especially Daisy. But in
the end wealth does not bring anyone happiness or love. Gatsby could not
use money to buy Daisys love. Also although Gatsby knows many important
people, that come to his parties, after he dies only a few people come to his
funeral. Wealth and power die with Gatsby.
Which leads the story into many lies and deceit from the characters.
The lies and deceit practiced by Gatsby, Myrtle and the Buchanans leads to
inevitable tragedy when the truths are revealed. Gatsby was caught in the lie
of wealth and many people did not know as to how he became rich which
caused many people to not trust him. Daisy was caught in a lie of love with
her husband Tom. She thought by lying to herself about being with Tom that
it would keep the happiness in their marriage. Tom and Myrtle however were
caught in a lie with each other. They were being unfaithful to their partners
which made the story tragically resulting in a death of Myrtle and her
husband.
In conclusion even though there seemed to be many themes in the
story the most important seems to be lies and deceit. The lies told by the
characters ended in tragedy and even death. This is because the truth was
so usually covered up by lies. In the end the ones who got hurt the most

were Gatsby, Myrtle and her husband because they revolved themselves
around lies the most.