Retreating Into Carelessness: Tom & Daisy in The Great Gatsby Aren't The Only Ones Who Don't Care

"The Great Gatsby", Jay Gatsby, started off his life as James Gatz: a poor man with unsuccessful, farmers as parents, but a man with amazing ambition. At the end of his life he was an overly rich tycoon with a huge mansion on West Egg of Long Island. 

What made him seem great to Nick and most people who read the book, even though he may have seemed like just a careless, spoiled, rich man, buying lots of fancy shirts, an orange juicing machine and a pool that he only used once, having butlers and servants doing his everyday deeds, and throwing wild, extravagant parties for hundreds of people at his mansion, was that he was doing it all for a purpose. That purpose though - to get Daisy to marry him and forget the past five years of her life was too presumptuous, and the way he acquired the wealth to satisfy this purpose was illegal and unethical. 

One might say that at least this gave his life meaning and he didn't just carelessly fritter it away. One might say that he was different than the other rich characters in the book, such as Tom, Daisy, Jordan or the people at his parties and unlike them, he did care about others. He was a great friend to Nick and even offered him a job. He took the blame for hitting and killing Myrtle when it was actually Daisy who did it. 

One might say he had amazing ambition, courage and perseverance. One might even say that he was great. All that he did though was for actually for himself, not for others. It may have seemed like he was doing everything and buying everything to make Daisy happy, or it may have seemed like he was very nice in the way he treated Nick and the people at his parties. Nick though, said that Gatsby admitted to him that when he first met Daisy, it was her house, her wealth and her social status that he fell in love with, not her necessarily. 

It was also possible that the only reason he was nice to Nick was that he was related to Daisy and might be able to hook up with her through him. Although Gatsby was good in the sense that he had a dream and he tried everything he could to achieve it, I would not consider him "great" because of the carelessness he also had.

A lot of the wealthy, old money East Eggers, such as Tom and Daisy, had a much different start to life than Gatsby. They had been well-off all of their lives and they didn't seem to have any passionate dreams or goals they were trying to achieve. They were even more careless than Gatsby. All they seemed to care about were the things in life that they thought would give themselves pleasure such as money, alcohol, extramarital affairs, ponies for playing polo, motor-boats or whatever else was the newest fashionable thing for an old money person to have. They didn't care at all about other people.

First of all, they didn't even care about each other. Tom went off to see Myrtle every few weeks and received phone calls from her in the middle of his dinners with Daisy. Daisy had seen many men before her marriage to Tom and she just happened to choose him because she was tired at the moment of not having any stability in her life and he seemed like a high-class, well-known, bulky, rich man that could fit her standards. So she got married and was soon excited by the experience of the wedding, of going on an extravagant honeymoon, and of the romance of the first few months of marriage; not necessarily because of the person she was married to. 

After they had traveled around a bit and had had a baby, their romance and early passionate love started to wear off. Tom started to see Myrtle and Daisy started to feel down about herself and had thoughts of other men she could've been with; like Gatsby. Even though care for one another should go along with marriage, it did not for Tom and Daisy and they still seeked out other pleasures. 

They also showed a lack of care in the way they treated their young daughter Pammy. When she was born and Daisy found out it was a girl she said she hoped she turned out to be "a beautiful little fool' which is really just wanted she wished for herself. This shows her daughter's life has no value to her. Also, when Gatsby and Nick were over at their house Pammy made an appearance Daisy said to her: "your mother wanted to show you off (117). This seemed to be the only thing she wanted her for, to show her off, other than to have a little girl to play around with and be able to call her things like "blessed precious" or "little dream" or "sweetheart". She didn't seem to spend very much time with her since she had a nurse taking care of her all the time. 

At least she was a bit better of a parent than Tom. He didn't even acknowledge that he had a daughter once in the book. Not only did they not care for one another within their family, they also showed very little respect for many of the other people they interacted with. Their butlers and servants they definitely treated with low regard. They also made racist statements and believed that other races were inferior and hadn't made any contributions to civilization when they themselves hadn't at all either. When they went out in public they also treated people of lower social or economical status like dirt. 

For example, when Tom went to George Wilson's garage, he ignored his friendly request to buy his car, then took his wife Myrtle away from him for the night. Then when Daisy killed Myrtle she wouldn't even take the blame herself and Tom all of a sudden, was very sympathetic to George and told him that Gatsby was the one cheating on his wife so it must've been him who hit her with the car. Gatsby was killed for this and Tom just forgot about it all because he had Daisy back to himself and didn't have to worry about any trouble with the law. Daisy did not even think about Gatsby either after he died, even after all the things he had done to try and impress her and meet her standards. 

Nick summed up the characters of Tom and Daisy well when he said that: "they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" (187-188).

I believe today, in our North American society, most of us are a lot like Tom and Daisy and all the other rich, careless people in The Great Gatsby. Although we may show love to our family and, respect to others, we are generally very careless in the way we live. 

In this world there are many problems; people are affected by war, disease, natural disasters, hunger and poverty. There are many people who are doing labour for cheap, labour that they don't what to do but need to to survive, to provide for our consumerism. 

Even in our own country, in our own communities, and in our own lives there are people who are suffering; people who are poor in wealth, poor in health or poor in spirit. There are people who are living close to us, who we may walk or drive by everyday, who we could help if we just took the time and effort to do so. We though, like Tom and Daisy are usually just too concerned with our own life, our own entertainment, or our own pleasures to care. 

Even when we do do things for others, like Gatsby, it is usually just to satisfy our own ambition and to make ourselves look good. Although we may not be as filthy rich as Tom and Daisy were, we are still rich compared to most of the world and our blessed to be so fortunate. 

We need to spread what we have with others. We need to care.

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