From Romeo to Gatsby: the most toxic relationships in literature

Often literature can romanticise relationships for narrative value, but when we take a step back and remove the rose-tinted glasses, we see them for what they are: toxic. Some of the most iconic and romanticised literary characters are culprits of this. Their fame and status helps normalise relationships we would otherwise condemn.  

An example of this is Gatsby. Everyone’s favourite roaring-twenties, fake millionaire is far from the romantic hero pop-culture created. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel The Great Gatsby, the relationship between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchannan is far from pure, as he manipulates her throughout the novel. The climax of this is where he demands she confess she never loved her husband Tom. This moment where Gatsby is trying to make her leave her husband is not only controlling over her physical life but her emotional one.

Gatsby’s affection towards Daisy is better defined as obsession, not love. The parties he threw in the hopes she would attend, to the willingness to blindly cover up her crimes all show a man obsessed with keeping his object of infatuation (here Daisy) in a state of superiority. He will do anything to keep her on his mental pedestal. This toxic nature ignores who Daisy really is, or wants to be. It is control, not affection. But Daisy is no better, as she uses Gatsby as an escape from her life she feeds into his toxic fantasies. Yet, eventually she leaves without even phoning the man she ‘loves’ good-bye.

The romance between these star-crossed lovers has become the template for most modern day love narratives

We see this once again in the ultimate romance trope: the Romeo and Juliet complex. The romance between these star-crossed lovers has become the template for most modern day love narratives. Yet, if we pull back the surface level appeal of people fighting adversary to be together, we see that the structure of this relationship is not healthy.

From the beginning of the play, the character of Romeo is grieving from loving a woman called Rosaline, something that is seemingly forgotten when he meets Juliet. Despite productions, such as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet presenting this meeting as ‘love at first sight’, the truth is Romeo again presents a more fleeting yet still similarly obsessive nature to that Gatsby holds. The fact that he is only at the party to get over an old love is seemingly forgotten by the audience to allow subsequent events of the play due to the fact it was ‘love at first sight’.

This notion of being ‘meant to be’ is used to excuse behaviour throughout the play. The secret marriage of a thirteen-year-old girl is allowed on the basis she loves him, having only known him a few days. The murder of Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, is washed over in the sense Juliet has no great reaction to Romeo’s part in it, as in the next scene they have sex for the first time, to finally, the dual deaths of the two main characters. The most disturbing after-effect of the play is that this portrayal of love has become the iconic, desired template, that the media keeps perpetuating. Rather than seeing how these children were victims of blind family prejudice, the focus has been shifted to a love death cannot break.  

Due to this literary framework for love, at no point could either party, Juliet or Romeo, Daisy or Gatsby, say stop

Here is where the toxicity is at its height. Many of these romances present an image of a love to die for.  This removes culpability, responsibility, and the option to say when things have gone too far. Due to this literary framework for love, at no point could either party, Juliet or Romeo, Daisy or Gatsby, say “stop, this has got out of hand.” Instead we are conditioned to believe that if someone is willing to behave in such a way for you, then it must be ‘true’ love.

Yet we should remember that these are ficticious examples. Literature has always represented many facets of life, so perhaps these are only extreme examples, and why does it matter? No real relationships are ever perfect. The issue lies in the normalisation of toxic romances within the public sphere. If something is heralded as a perfect template for love, relationships or affection, then people may carry that into the real world. Believing this and behaving like this outside of books has serious ramifications, just like it does in the original texts.

This isn’t to say the examples named are not great books, there is a reason they are both considered classics in the literary canon, but what needs to be considered is the reality of these storylines, and the ability to see a toxic relationship as inexcusable behaviour in the name of love.