What do you think of my "The Great Gatsby" Paper?

I have a borderline grade. Here was my assignment:

"Corruption of people and society is one of the themes in The Great Gatsby. Choose three characters whom you think are corrupt and explain how they are corrupt (Be sure to use quotations from the novel). How does corruption tie-in to the idea of the American Dream?"

Here's my paper:

Corruption of people and society is a major theme in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Throughout the novel, we are introduced to a large sum of characters that have crooked takes on morals and ideals. Daisy Buchanan is a pompous women who places all her worth into money and other materialistic products. Tom Buchanan is a hypocritical women abuser that lacks proper judgment and cheats on his wife. Jay Gatsby becomes delusional by his love for Daisy and exaggerates just how incredible she actually is. All these characters represent how the American Dream became corrupt in the 1920s.
Daisy Buchanan exhibits a sense of superiority given her economic stature. She sacrifices her beloved partner for someone with more wealth. In this sense, she successfully manages to capture the corruption of the American Dream; people sacrificing what they love for materialist desires.
Tom Buchanan is a cruel being with double standards. He feels that he can cheat on Daisy whenever he wants, but he still is angered when he realizes that she is cheating on him. This shows the corrupt side of things because he is not giving the same respect he thinks he deserves. He also abuses women, which shows us his superiority complex.
Jay Gatsby becomes obsessed with the idea of Daisy, rather than who she actually is. He becomes nostalgic with what he thinks is a better time, and in turn has a skewed mindset of who Daisy actually is. His entire life is focused around Daisy; his idea of the best life he can live. However, when he is finally reunited with her, he realizes that she isn’t as fantastic as he remembers and no longer has any kind of American Dream to long after. He now has everything, and while there’s nothing more he could possibly want, he still feels empty inside.
All three of these characters display the corrupt side of the American dream. Daisy forgets what’s important in her life and throws away the greatest gift one can have for fortune. Tom thinks it’s okay to boss around women as if they are below him. Gatsby is unsatisfied with what he has and no longer knows what he wants.
I'm a Junior in High School, by the way. Any pointers? I'll get to the citations soon enough.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you posted this in the wrong forum. As a mod or an admin who's online to move it to the Writer's Corner and I'm sure they'll be glad to help :)

But besides that, I think this is a pretty solid paper. Though, it seems a bit short. What's the length requirement?

Wasn't there like a study hall forum?

I read it, and it pretty good for Jr stuffs. I could try to give it more of a read through tonight, but no promises. I am currently on the later side of a 15 hour shift at work. :eep:

Thanks. It's due tomorrow. I added a few things in... then I accidently lost the document due to a stupid reason. I then wrote it again and added a few things in. Not too much.

I know it is short, and I generally am known to make longer papers, but I seriously didn't want to get repetitive. I did not know what else to say and I figured that anything else I might've add would've been pointless.

Thanks for the help, guys. I appreciate it!

Might want to be careful. A teacher might be googling your paper and finding a copy of it online, mark you down for plagiarism xD

You use "women" instead of "woman" in the first paragraph, once with daisy and once with tom (although this might be subjective)

" becomes delusional by" you'll want to say 'is turned delusional by', or 'becomes deluded by', or something. That combination doesn't quite work, as it stands.


For the second paragraph, since your main point is that daisy sacrifices what she has to gain economic and societal power, tell us that earlier (first or second sentence), then show with a quote how she got her stature, or how she abused it.

"To live out the American Dream is to never abandon one's morals. We see that Daisy does exactly this in [chapter whatever], where [quote]. By [doing what she did in quote], Daisy shows that she has put more value on her social status than [whatever she screwed over].

Make sure you dig out some quotes! Randomly flipping through the book is more effective than not looking at all :D

You'll also want to explain what exactly the American dream means-- are these characters fulfilling it, or are they perverting it? This would be something good to have in your first and final paragraphs, and refer to in the body.

Also, make sure you get rid of your conjunctions! No apostrophes:)