Great Gatsby

1 Pages 338 Words

In Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates the
theme, “Outward appearances can be deceiving.” This theme is
shown in a few parts of the book. These outward appearances are
not only found in people, but in the geographical areas of the New
York area.
The first deceiving outward appearance is that of Daisy. At
first, we are lead to believe that she is a very happy person, as
Gatsby’s love. But she is not, she is a rather tragic and selfish
person. We see this when she uses Gatsby as a way to go to parties
and look popular, while she is really more attracted to Tom. And in
the end of the story, she takes off with Tom and doesn’t leave a trace
to where they are going.
There is a big irony in this. We see that Gatsby is pursuing the
woman he loves. But Daisy ends up inadvertently causing Gatsbys
death by killing Myrtle in the car accident, which set Wilson into a
psychotic mood.
Gatsby himself has an outside appearance that is deceiving.
At first, we see that he is a wealthy, courteous, and handsome man
who is trying to get the woman he loves. Later on, we realize that
Gatsby uses enormous amounts of people to get to Daisy. By
throwing these large parties to impress Daisy, he uses many people,
including Nick, to get to her.
Another small, but deceiving appearance is that of the New
York area. New York and East Egg are seen as beautiful, wealthy
cities. But these cities form a layer to cover the valley of ashes, the
area of poverty and desolation of the cities. This deceiving
appearance may be minor, but it is there to support a theme of the
book.
These issues in the book are all used by Fitzgerald to support
the theme, “Outward appearances can be deceiving.” These issues
all have to be pulled out of the story and torn apart before they can
be understood by the reader. Fitzgerald does an excellent job of
interweaving conflicts and plots to make the story...