Examples Of Carelessness In The Great Gatsby

Emily Browning, a budding Australian actress once said, “With young people, there’s often that carelessness, allowing yourself to get into danger – recklessness, I suppose”. This quote is pertinent to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, due to the reckless behaviors of the characters. The novel presents a time of wealth, corruption and yearning, allowing the characters to experience a reckless lifestyle. Fitzgerald introduces the characters, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy married couple who each finds lust in another person. Throughout Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the effects of carelessness between The Buchanans, Myrtle Wilson, and Jay Gatsby are displayed through their actions among each other.
Although, Tom and Daisy are a wealthy couple, they have several issues within their marriage. When Daisy gave birth to their daughter, Pammy Buchanan, Tom vanished from the scene. This is conveyed when Daisy told her cousin, Nick Carraway, “It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about –
Throughout their relationship, they were constantly engaging in lustful actions, even though Tom was married. The carelessness between Tom and Myrtle is not only portrayed by them being together behind closed doors, but also in public. An example of the carelessness, shown by both Myrtle and Tom, is when Myrtle expresses her feelings about Daisy, Tom’s wife; this action displeased Tom enough to strike her across the face (37). Although Tom and Myrtle were open about their relationship, they kept it hidden from George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband. An example of carelessness, shown by Tom is when he gave fraudulent information to George, allowing him to think that Gatsby was Myrtle’s lover. The information given to George drove him mad; he murdered Gatsby and committed suicide moments later (158-165). The carelessness between Tom and Myrtle not only affected their lives, but the others around