Discontent in the Great Gatsby Essay Example

attempt to add some spice to his dull life, he practically lived a double-life in New York City with an entire apartment for himself and his mistress, Myrtle. It was evident that Buchanan was unsatisfied with what he had due to the fact that he had failed to give his life a true meaning. He had not been doing anything that was considered to be worthwhile or meaningful with his life.

Nick Carraway summarizes this fact up perfectly by stating, “…Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game” (4). Basically, he is stating that Tom Buchanan held so much power and influence previously in their college days, that all the years after college could never hold a candle to being as thrilling and exhilarating as back in the past and this leads Tom to being the restless, cheating mess of a man he is in the present.

As for his mistress, Myrtle, she is nearly as bad as him. All she desired was the easy way in life and given that she lived with an impoverished and tedious husband, she was tremendously disgruntled with her lifestyle. Instead of making an attempt to prevail from her unfortunate circumstances through hard work and dedication, she turned to Tom Buchanan to be her knight in shimmering armor. Myrtle harbored many prodigious hopes and dreams for her future, although she would never see them come true. Rather than what she had hoped and dreamed for, she was only able to feign being rich every once in a while; at the call of Tom Buchanan.

Although from two opposing lives, both Tom Buchanan

and Myrtle felt discontent with what they possessed, or didn’t possess in their lives. Similar to the Buchanans, Jordan Baker was living an irresponsible, yet affluent and tedious life. She had spent her time playing and cheating at golf and attending many parties. In addition to that, Baker did not have a job nor any type of serious relationship to occupy her time. Overall, she had an abundance of free time on her hands, which she utilized to mingle with the “rotten crowd”. Although she attempted to appear as indifferent to everything, she revealed her discontent with herself and her life in rather psychological and subdued ways.

At one point, on the occasion of Nick confronting her on her thoughtlessness, she simply responded by stating, “…I hate careless people. That’s why I like you” (58). Prior to that statement, Jordan had confessed to being a reckless and careless person, so when she states her distaste for careless people, she is inexplicably implying that she disliked herself and possibly the rash decisions she had made during her lifetime. On another note, Jordan was extremely prone to gossiping as well as snooping around in other people’s affairs, a straightforward suggestion that she was stulified with her own life due to the fact that her life was not dazzling nor star-studded.

As a result of this fact, she glimpsed into other people’s more exhilarating and invigorating lives, using them to divert her attention away from dwelling on her own tedious, uneventful, and unexciting lifestyle. In a way, Nick Carraway was very much parallel to Jordan Baker. He observed, but didn’t necessarily involve himself in the ridiculous lives of the city

and its inhabitants. Nick was not too entirely pleased with his life in the city nor did he find pleasure in being with people as he found them to be corrupt.

His repugnance for them rises steadily until the end of the novel, causing him to concern himself over his own life; worrying about whether he should settle down and not potentially mess up his life, such as a couple individuals he had associated himself with. Nick was beyond discontent with his life in the city—however, unlike the other recurring characters in the novel, Nick had a sufficient amount of common sense and morality to relocate to where he was most comfortable: The West. In conclusion, Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway did not necessarily alter the paths of other people’s lives because of their own complications, which vastly set the duo apart from the remaining main characters in the novel.

Jay Gatsby came from an undistinguished town in the West, to not all that well-off farmers, but he did not let that prevent him from going out to successfully attain his ambition. He is wholly committed to achieving his dream to the point of making it so that he can be with Daisy Buchanan once more. For years, he exerted himself in order to achieve affluence, but he did not make an attempt to get the greatest possible experience from those days. Instead of just making himself better for Daisy, Jay Gatsby could have met and interacted with people to establish lasting friendships with other people., but he was only focused on bettering himself which led him to making friends with the wrong types of people.

He made

all these triumphs in his life, such as his heroics in the Great War and the affluence he accumulated in a relatively short amount of time, but he still had this empty, disconnected feeling inside of him due to the fact that he failed to do something for himself and instead focused on trying to impress a female who he hadn’t known all too long. At the end of the novel, Nick summarized Jay Gatsby’s shortcomings by stating, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us….

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (180).  Jay Gatsby allowed himself to become so fixated on one quick affair (only one of many for Daisy) and built up Daisy to be such a perfect being that was not even humanly possible or realistic. His expectations and infatuation with the past were the main contributions to his feeling discontent with his life. As a result, he permitted the discontent to control him. In conclusion to these reasons, discontent was portrayed as the main theme throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, as portrayed by the main characters who were all dissatisfied with their lives and yearned or strived towards what they believed to be the perfect life.

Discontent was shown in each of the characters whether a main or supporting one. Tom Buchanan was stultified with a life that did not even come close in comparison to his era of golden days in college while Myrtle, his mistress, absolutely detested her impoverished life with her tedious husband and they both seeked out for something better. Jordan Baker,

very much similar to Tom Buchanan, was also weary of her dull, uneventful lifestyle and quite possibly harbored an immense feeling of strong distaste for her own self, so as a result of that, she attempted to quell this feeling by attending party after party and diverting her attention on other people’s lives instead of pondering about her own.

Nick had became very worried about whether he should settle down and before he had a chance to mess up and become similar to the chaotic people around him that he was disgusted of. Jay Gatsby had permitted himself to be disillusioned by creating this false image that Daisy was a woman so profound and perfect in each and every way, which would eventually lead to his unfortunate disappointment of who she really is and how she’s not everything he hoped and expected her to be.

Each of these characters along with the supporting characters harbor some form of discontent with themselves or their lifestyle, which they all do their best to transfigure in their own ways, so that they can forget about their individual complications or vanquish them. Every character’s complications are ultimately what projected the start and influence on the occurrences throughout the development of the novel, amending other people’s lives indefinitely.

Discontent and dissatisfaction portrays itself constantly throughout the novel, in addition to this fact, when it comes down to the conclusion, it is indeed the most prevalent themes and the most prominent reason for the every action and occurence that took place in the novel.