Marxist Reading Of The Great Gatsby

Some Things are Just Too Expensive to Afford When reading a story that filled with plot twists, climaxes, and various characters and emotionally charged events, one must be able to become emotionally invested in such a work to read what the author is trying to convey in the work of literature. Only by reading into the minds of the characters can one decipher the encoded messages that is deeply imbedded in a work of literature and by this, catch a glimpse into the mind of the author and understand the underlying themes present within its pages. This method of literary interpretation is commonly known as the Marxist Theory of Interpretation. Of all the books I have read in my lifetime, never has a novel or story in literary fiction has
Gatsby, a well to do upper class man is mostly a mystery to everyone. He has this huge adoring mansion with servants and has huge over-the-top parties in which the “who 's who” of society always come. Yet, Gatsby himself rarely makes an appearance but befriends our narrator, Nick. Nick is not of an upper-class family but has found a home in a somewhat of an eye-sore house that has been overlooked that is nestled between two huge mansions; one of those belonging to Gatsby. When they finally get to meet, they discover that Nick 's cousin Daisy is a long lost love of Gatsby 's. Upon arranging for them to meet, we learn that the enormous mansion and all the parties were just Gatsby doing everything he could in hopes of drawing Daisy to the party to find her all over again. This first off shows that Gatsby was dwelling in the ideology that since Daisy wanted fame and fortune, then fame and fortune would find her and bring her back to him. Yet, when showing her the mansion, Daisy questions how Gatsby can stand to live in such a huge place all by himself. He replies, “I keep it full of interesting people night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people” (Fitzgerald, p. 97). This of course tells me that the huge mansion and all the wealth and prestige that Gatsby seems to have has not provided him happiness. This is why he must feel the house with people whom he refers to as
The ideologies of using wealth to be happy fails everyone involved. Neither character in this story whether it be Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, or Nick finds any happiness in the end. Nick loses his best friend, Gatsby loses his life, and Tom and Daisy continue to live in the web of false securities that wealth can provide, still remaining captive to the ideology of wealth and social status to measure one 's worth. As you can see, by using the Marxist Theory approach and just invoking a little common sense, it truly is a masterpiece of a story that tells us all that the ideology of putting a worth of someone 's importance based upon materialistic possessions is a crumbling foundation that will always fall through in the end. Regardless of the circumstances, in the end, money cannot buy happiness because there are just some things in life that are too expensive to