Posted: March 4th, 2021

The Great Gatsby – Violent Situations

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the violent situations that occur reveal the true personalities and feelings of many of the characters. To begin, Tom and Myrtle are discussing whether Myrtle has the right to mention Daisy’s name and Myrtle annoyingly repeated “Daisy”. This outraged Tom. “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand… Then there were bloody towels upon the bath-room floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain”(41). Tom brings out the dark side of him.
He demonstrates how brutal and cruel he is by getting to the point of punching a woman. Tom clearly loses his temper easily and does not know how to control himself. He gets outraged if others don’t obey him which makes him controlling. He also shows that he has some respect for Daisy because he does not let the girl he uses for a sexual relationship, to say her name. Secondly, under stress, Daisy is driving at a fast speed when Myrtle jumps in front of the car, and Daisy hit her and took off. Daisy brutally kills Myrtle. Michaelis and this man reached her first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long”(145). Daisy seems like a sweet, innocent woman but she proves instead to be selfish. She commits such a nasty and brutal mistake that the right thing would be for her to take responsibility for it.
She doesn’t though, because she’s careless and worries only about herself. At the same time, Myrtle demonstrates her hope for freedom and to be with Tom as she runs towards the car. She is obviously not happy with George Wilson. Lastly, George becomes so sure Gatsby killed his wife, Myrtle, that he shoots him and after shoots himself. “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete”(170). After George is told that Gatsby kills Myrtle, he becomes careless.

He proves that he is very passionate about his love for his wife, that when she dies he doesn’t care for his own life any longer. He feels bitter and the need of revenge. His grief over-powers him. For Gatsby, this reveals his corruption. Since he dies in his pool, surrounded by his own blood, he dies like a criminal; he dies like a criminal would die for corruption. In The Great Gatsby, the violent situations expose who and how the characters truly are. It is their actions that speak their words.

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