The Great Gatsby

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one […] just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Nick signals his nonjudgmental attitude as a narrator. It’s also designed to be ironic in the sense that such a line is traditionally used to excuse the behavior of the underprivileged. Yet in The Great Gatsby, where the most deplorable acts are consistently committed by the absurdly rich, the line serves to cleverly skewer the extent to which wealth and prosperity breed unforgivable behavior.

“I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the war center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man.”

Nick frames his decision to move to New York as a consequence of having fought in the war. This may reflect some of Fitzgerald’s broader attitudes toward the Roaring Twenties. For example, many soldiers saw the brutality of World War I as having effectively annihilated the old Victorian morals of the 19th century, leading to the hedonism of the Jazz Age.

“‘Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. “All right,” I said, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,’ she went on in a convinced way. ‘Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.’ Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. ‘Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!’”

Daisy’s corruption is made clear the moment she is introduced in the novel. “Scorn” contradicts the usual connotations of “sophisticated,” suggesting that Daisy is frustrated or trapped by her high position and its expectations. The shallowness of her lifestyle and marriage is reinforced by her husband abandoning her as little as an hour after their child is born. Daisy herself is the “beautiful little fool,” a model high society woman to both Gatsby and Tom.