The Great Gatsby: Pages 25-36

Pages twenty-five through thirty-six of F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, brought to my attention a concept that I also noticed in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. That concept is the complete disregard for the boundaries and commitment of marriage. Several characters in The House of Mirth had frequent, long-term affairs with other characters, regardless of their marital status. Once again, the characters of The Great Gatsby fall prey to temptation and partake in their own affairs. Tom Buchanan, a wealthy, married man living in Long Island, has his own mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who is also married! Tom is even well-acquainted with, maybe even friends with his mistress’ husband. The unaffected way in which these characters deceive each other and treat each other wrongly just is not right. Tom only puts up with Mr. Wilson because of Myrtle, and he even goes as far to get amusement out of his indiscretions, stating that Mr. Wilson “thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive,” (Fitzgerald, 26). Although I completely disagree with the affairs that seem to be so common in these late 1800’s, early 1900’s novels, the aspect of them that probably bothers me the most is the affect they can have of the faithful husband or wife. For those who have done nothing wrong, they seem to go through life unaware of the fact that their closest friends and confidants are secretly betraying them. Occasionally, these characters even are aware that some other man or woman is more important to their spouse than they are. The prominence of affairs in historical literature of this time gives me cause to believe that this was normal behavior during the Roaring Twenties, and that unfortunately makes me think a little less of what seemed to be such a successful decade in our country’s history.