What is Fitzgerald's purpose in contrasting the images of "hard rock" and "wet marshes" in the following passage from The Great Gatsby? "And,...

In this passage from The Great Gatsby, Nick employs contrasting metaphors to explore the lack of morality present in the Old Money characters, particularly Daisy and Tom Buchanan, whose "careless" behavior Nick rebukes at the end of the novel.

The phrase “Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes” is a metaphor that explores two different foundations, like that of a building. Conduct, or, as Nick implies here, behavior based on...

In this passage from The Great Gatsby, Nick employs contrasting metaphors to explore the lack of morality present in the Old Money characters, particularly Daisy and Tom Buchanan, whose "careless" behavior Nick rebukes at the end of the novel.

The phrase “Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes” is a metaphor that explores two different foundations, like that of a building. Conduct, or, as Nick implies here, behavior based on morals, can be solid and unshakeable if founded on “hard rock,” while the conduct of those who have it founded on “wet marshes” really lack a moral compass.

Throughout the novel, Daisy, Tom and Jordan Baker exert a certain carelessness about their activities. Tom flaunts his affair with a poor woman and doesn’t care about smashing her nose in when she upsets him. Daisy jumps right into an affair with Gatsby without concern for how it will affect those around her. (It’s interesting to note that Nick does not hold Gatsby to the same moral standards as Daisy despite him engaging in just as immoral behavior.) Jordan explains that she's a “rotten driver” but that other people will “keep out of [her] way,” so she doesn't have to be more careful.

At the end of the novel, Nick explains the result of these characters’ conduct that was built on “wet marshes”: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and people and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let others clean up the mess they made . . .”

Nick, meanwhile, seems to believe his conduct was built on “solid rock,” but this belief is hard to justify as he was implicit in his approval of Daisy’s, Gatsby’s and Tom’s behavior throughout. Unfortunately for Nick, his behavior seems to be built on the same “wet marshes” as the others major characters.