In some instances, people face many obstacles while pursuing goodness and justice. Ben Franklin wrote in his journal, “In morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated. . .” (Franklin 83). Franklin took on the endeavor of moral perfection, and discovered that, by utterly failing, to achieve this would mean the elimination of more than just actions which could be perceived as immoral, such as abstaining from the consumption of alcohol and refraining from gossip. When people become engrossed in obtaining perfection, they may lose their sense of self and become unapproachable to others, losing the ability to make human connections. Although…show more content… In fact, as people in the late 19th century began to realize this came the advent of the neoclassical movement, which was a response to the harsh religious standards that ruled the western world. Within this movement came different schools of thought, one of which being absurdism. Absurdism refers to the conflict between the tendency of humans to need to find a meaning in events, seeking an inherent value in any action, and there being none, the absurd is born out of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world (Camus). Camus is saying that events in this world do not mean anything and are just chance occurrences. The progression of events in The Great Gatsby stem from the interactions that are caused by fortuity. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle is hit by Daisy one night, because earlier that night she had seen Tom driving the car and thought to wave him down this time. But, Daisy did not know Myrtle and did not realize what she was doing and hit her, some may view this action as an atrocity, but in the course of events it's simply an accident that causes the death of Tom’s other woman, “. . .there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners. . .” (Fitzgerald 137). Myrtle’s demise is tragic, but it is no one's fault, it just so happens to be her final fate in life. One could characterize Daisy as wicked for running away after the hitting Myrtle, but one could not do the same for the act of her hitting Myrtle, as it was simply an accident. The incident had no inherent meaning, it did not mean that Myrtle deserved to get hit, or Daisy was a bad person for hitting her, or even that it was Tom’s fault for being in the car to start with. Human try to make meaning out of every event that occurs, but in accordance with the absurdist form of thought, it is
