The lies we tell

Submitted by: Andres Esquivel

Submitted to: Mr. Costa
ENG4U-04
May 7, 2024
 I have lied considerably in my lifetime. Various lies have emerged from my mouth, yet with

all the lies I have spewed up, I have found myself drowning in a pool of ridiculous falsehoods. In F.

Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, we observe a series of characters succumbing to the same fate I

am in. Tom Buchanan deceives the loved ones around him by accompanying many mistresses and

half-heartedly trying to cover up the affairs. After Myrtle’s tragic death, Daisy Buchanan falsifies the

ordeal and the driver responsible for the accident. Jay Gatsby is ultimately misled into a fantastical

illusion of himself, losing the essence of his true character. In analyzing the themes and characters of

The Great Gatsby, I see that the lies that they tell are the lies that we tell; that the lies we tell others

are no worse than the lies we tell ourselves.

Whether by intention or ignorance, our minuscule or substantial lies have triggered pain in

others we may never truly comprehend. I claim to feel a sense of shame and regret for the pain I

cause, but my continuous acts contradict the contrary. Tom Buchanan is a ‘cruel’ and destructive

person who feels no shame about the treacherous acts he commits. We learn about Tom’s “woman in

New York,” (Fitzgerald 15) demonstrating Tom’s destructive and dishonest lifestyle; while also

showcasing the pain he inflicts on Daisy. As a result of continuous internal dishonesty, Tom believes

that his conceived superiority and status render him invincible to any problems that may arise. This

mentality ultimately leads to his affair with Myrtle and the following unpleasant events. The

psychological pain of his betrayal prompts Daisy to fabricate a pessimistic view of her life and hopes

for her daughter to be a “beautiful little fool,”(17) as that would assist some avoidance of the pain

Daisy feels. Even with the extreme notoriety of their affair, Tom never ceases to accept any

responsibility for the lies he expels, leading to pain being inflicted on not just Daisy, but Myrtle as

well. The result of Tom’s cowardice leads to the death of Myrtle Wilson and the beginning of the end

for Gatsby. Spiraling from one problem to another, Tom’s dishonesty caused mayhem and the death
of two people; not long after, pretending as if none of it happened. He “smashed things up” “and then

retreated back into” his money or whatever kept his ego together, “and let other people clean up the

mess that” he “had made”. (179)

I remember a time when I got into serious trouble for something I did. My parents brought the

incident up to me and I lied to their face in an attempt to protect myself from punishment. As

minuscule as the incident was, my fabricated falsity caused me more pain than it would have if I just

accepted responsibility. Blinded by the love he has for Daisy, Gatsby does not see the true nature

behind Daisy Buchanan’s character. She is not as perfect as Gatsby’s depiction, as she lies like any

one of us. She was the true culprit behind the death of Myrtle Wilson but lied in some sort of act of

self-preservation. She “ran over her like a dog”(178) and let others believe that Gatsby was behind it

all. Daisy has always been a liar, whether it was to herself or the others around her. Once realizing

that she can be supported by Tom, she instantly drops her and Gatsby’s relationship in search of a

more secure and self-driven ‘love.’ Ironically, she then proceeded to lie to Tom about her secretive

meet-ups with Gatsby. Instead of owning up to her mistakes, she continuously lied about her ordeals,

becoming an accessory to her ex-lover's death. Daisy is depicted early on as a perfect golden wife, but

we later soon discover that she is no better than the man she married. She easily lives up to the

Buchanan name.

We are all victims of self-dishonesty in one form or another. In following Gatsby’s journey, I

can not help but dwell on a past relationship I was in. We were in love with one another for an

extended time, but I found myself trying to find a love I was not being given. Gatsby pictured himself

as the “son of God” (98) setting up no realistic expectations for him to follow; though that vision was

slightly altered when he met Daisy. During a party, Gatsby found himself in love with Daisy from the

moment they locked eyes, and was enough to divert his destiny and incline him to follow an uncertain
path toward an uncertain lover. After the war, Gatsby ensured that he would be wed to Daisy, but on

the unrealistic terms he made for himself. The symbolic green light “that” had “been at the end of”

Daisy’s “dock”(21) reminded Gatsby of the reason for all the misdeeds he followed through with. In a

constant pursuit to “repeat the past”(110) Gatsby had grown convinced of the fantastical life he had

made up for himself. Dependently relying on the falsified version of himself, Gatsby had lost his

identity and the meaning behind his true character. Writing this paragraph has made me think about

how I changed my character for a girl who was indecisive about me to begin with. As a result of my

ignorance, I pursued some sort of validation from her for a long time; but I eventually moved on.

Gatsby lost the chance to follow the path I walked down, as the “amount of fire” that was stored “up

in his ghostly heart”(96) was too fierce to put out. Before he could accept that his fire was being

extinguished, it burned a bullet-sized hole in his heart replacing that once raging fire.

When we speak falsely about other people or ourselves, we inevitably come to find ourselves

gasping for breath from the pool of lies we submerge ourselves in. After I have examined the true

nature of the characters in this novel, I can conclude that any lie, whether said to others or ourselves,

has no greater precedence than the other. Our falsities vary, but cause some sort of anguish to every

person we inflict it upon. Tom’s infidelity caused distress amongst the people in his inner circle truly

showing the destructive nature our lies can have. Daisy, in an attempt to protect herself, shows how

lying for personal gain is a lot harder to deal with than just accepting responsibility. Our lies may

expel in the way that Gatsby’s did, showing us that the lies we tell ourselves leave an ache in our

hearts and our minds. We all like to think that we are honest people. But to truly understand what it

means to be honest, we must always bring to mind that honesty would never exist without dishonesty

present in our world.

 Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1925.