December 13, 2013
Wealth is Not Always Great Money has always had an effect on people, throughout history people have always strived to achieve wealth. However being rich and wealthy is not all about money, it is about being happy. In the The Great Gatsby happiness is bought because the characters living in East and West Egg have an absurd amount of money. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the lifestyle and behavior of wealthy individuals in The Great Gatsby, illuminating the corrupting power money can have on the personal relationships between characters. Through depiction of the characters’ hedonistic qualities: the pursuit of pleasure, Fitzgerald acknowledges that money truly can not buy happiness. The …show more content…
While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before …show more content…
Gatsby’s wealth overwhelmed Daisy because she does not feel loved by him, but as an object. He had bootlegged all the money he has for her, but money does not buy the happiness of others. What buys happiness is the true inner love and connection people have. Daisy “... began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.” Daisy began to cry because all the love Gatsby has for Daisy is fake because it is all just money. The extensive detail about the clothing displays how Gatsby has all the money to buy every type of sweater, but not buy the only thing that matters to him the most—Daisy. This illuminates how money cannot obtain love. Love and happiness cannot be bought they have to be earned. Gatsby tired to purchase Daisy’s love with all of his whimsical treasures, but it failed because she felt like an object not a human. Money is tremendously powerful and it can make loved ones feel more like an object than as a