Irony

F. Scott Fitzgerald employs irony in much of his writing. What should have been the making of a character often ends up causing their demise. This irony helps to show the meaninglessness behind much of what the Jazz Age idolized.

Winning Daisy is the reason Jay Gatsby makes gaining money his sole objective. It's not the money that will bring him happiness, but having Daisy. Yet it is Daisy who murders a woman and allows Gatsby to be murdered by the woman's husband for the crime. In Tender is the Night parties and alcohol are elements of the rich and elite. When Dick Diver's relationship with his wife begin spiraling downward, Dick begins drinking more and more, until the effects of alcoholism on his life force him to stop practicing psychiatry, and he drifts into oblivion. The things that Gatsby and Dick viewed as giving them success, brought them far from it. The irony of their situations reveals the purposelessness of their ideals.