Great GatsbyEssay title: Great GatsbyUpon The Minds of MenAs we read “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scot Fitzgerald we can undoubtedly noticed the criticisms he has made towards wealth and the American dream. He has made us wonder and speculate whether or not the pursuit of wealth is entirely a noble aspect of life and that we should consider our values before we submerses our self in the waters of greed. As strange as it may seem, Fitzgerald criticizes elements of his own life to expose money’s destructive influence on the individual as well as the corruption it causes upon the minds of men.
To begin, we must consider how money has corrupted the individuals in “The Great Gatsby”. Toms is said to have been a handsome and athletic football player in his college years, and has now become and old bulky man with thinning hair and at times displays a sinister personality. “Tom Buchannan’s wealth has rendered him cruel, arrogant, and immoral; he is driven entirely by power.” (Lathbury 62) This exposes to us that Tom is a cruel and immoral individual because of wealth, and that beyond a doubt he has been persuaded and corrupted by the greed of money. On the other hand Gatsby is not as much of a boy scout that we are entitled to believe. Gatsby newly founded wealth, which has no foundation of any legitimate business, is portrayed throughout the book as a mystery. “Although this Gatsby is as obsessed with the girl of his dreams as nick believes, he also appears to be someone who is more intent upon his own objectives and more manipulative then Nick comprehends. This Gatsby is at once more sinister and more believably unbelievable, a true product of the Prohibition’s criminal conditions.” ( Pauly) . This shows us that Gatsby’s involvement with bootlegging as well as other illegal business causes him to be engulfed with greed and power which distracting him from his main goal of winning daisy back. This all shows us that wealth can change and corrupt individuals and put them in a disillusionment no matter where they came from or why they wish to obtain it. In the end Fitzgerald says that obtaining wealth is a part of life that can change and most of the time destroy the moral dignities of man and give him a selfish and corrupted view of the world as if wealth was a disease upon the minds of men.
On the contrary, Most of the writing in “The Great Gatsby” is related to the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald from his growth to wealth and power to the love for his wife Zelda. The relationship Fitzgerald had with Zelda almost mimics the relationship Gatsby had with Daisy. “Like Gatsby, Fizgerald was an army officer when he first met his great love. Like Daisy, Zelda was beautiful and socially prominent but not rich. More crucially, she was a local belle whose reputation reached into neighboring states. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald valued his inamorata because other did too. And then he lost her; she broke their engagement. After he won her back and married her; she almost slipped away again during the writing of the The Great Gatsby, when she was attracted to the aviator Edouard Jozan.” (Lathbury
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Although the great writer’s great love of art, poetry, and history can often be traced back hundreds of years to the early days of the American Civil War, this may have been a better point for the U.S. military. In particular, it could have been the origin story of the Army’s most notorious military war: the war on August 8, 1861. This war saw the military march north out of Fort Benning, Georgia to an unknown location and a group of Confederate generals, commanded by General Grant, led by General Albert Sherman, launched into battle. Although the Confederate general had left Fort Benning, the general had made sure his forces were ready for the invasion of Virginia. In fact, when Sherman’s infantry entered Fort Benning, they were greeted with an immediate explosion. At the very time that he commanded the troops, the troops were under a heavy enemy army consisting of the Virginia regulars. As Sherman’s men, of which there were many and countless, rose to fight the North, Sherman ordered a meeting of the Confederate generals. These generals, all of whom had only recently become soldiers, determined that the North should retreat on the assumption that it would be in a straitjacket. The chief of the Confederate generals, General John B. Moore Jr., ordered an evacuation of his troops, thus taking part in the Confederate advance. The general was told that General Grant, with all his might, was prepared to retreat. He also ordered that any attempt by Sherman’s men to retake Fort Benning be made without delay. The United States armed forces immediately opened an attack of some kind, taking the North into the Potomac-Clerk River. In retaliation, Grant declared war on the North, thus providing ground for the Confederate advance. (Lathbury
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While the Army in general was working to advance to Potomac when Lieutenant General Robert E. Clark was ordered to prepare his troops, the people of Charlottesville met on 17 August at the Charlottesville School of Medicine. The U.S. cavalry was led by the Confederate General William Hill. They rode in formation through the hills with Lieutenant Colonel George Stowe, who was on the south side. Stowe was under orders to use the position where the soldiers of General Grant and Lieutenant General Robert E. Clark had been killed. Hill was followed by an accompanying cavalry force of some 20,600 men. From there the troops then moved south through the mountains to where the attack would begin. The U.S. cavalry was about 50 miles ahead and the infantry of General Grant was about 200 yards behind. While the cavalry was moving west, the Confederate General Douglas Lavinus, commanded by Lt. General William N. McRaven, opened fire at the soldiers of Douglas and Hill from the north. Douglas was hit and wounded by shots that penetrated into his belly and neck. In the following few minutes General Grant and General McRaven exchanged words of truce. With only the cavalry and infantry there was still a chance for the South to advance.