The Great Gatsby: Violence

"She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. it was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone but me." (page 137)

In the second half of The Great Gatsby we witnessed the violence that is incorporated into the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author incorporates violence in many ways, but he does it mainly from the syntax and the dialect in which people speak. In the quote above, Gatsby is being violent toward Tom with his words. Sometimes, at least sometimes in this novel, words can be more deceiving than anything. For example, knowledge of deceit and betrayal were what tore the families apart the most. Tom was so offended that Daisy would cheat on him, but he did the same thing to her. The betrayal was violent toward their relationship. Obviously, violence is what leads up to the death of many people in this book, but I am going to go into that in my next blog. The way in which the characters speak to each other is incredibly violent. Most of this rude dialect has to do with jealousy and egotism. In the quote above, Gatsby states that "in her heart she never loved anyone but me." This is what Gatsby has convinced himself of, but he cannot be entirely certain that Daisy did not love Tom at all. Perhaps Daisy said this to Gatsby because she could not look at Tom the same way when he began cheating on her. However, maybe Daisy did love Tom before Tom betrayed her. The violence escalates to the murder of Gatsby and the death of Myrtle. People's anger causes them to not only destroy relationships, but physically destroy human beings as well and lead to their tragic end.