Preview

Examples Of Wealth In The Great Gatsby

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
600 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Wealth In The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby remains a token piece of American Literature due to its astounding themes that transcend time and expose the flaws in modern society. Through the characters Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes that the misconception of wealth being profoundly good often leads to an unsatisfactory life in his book The Great Gatsby. Tom and Daisy Buchanan serve as examples of how fleeting prioritizing wealth is. When presented a choice between marrying Gatsby for love and marrying Tom for money, Daisy chooses the immediate gratification that Tom’s wealth promises. Tom’s marital devotion proves to be only paper deep, and Daisy is forced to raise a child with her unfaithful husband. Daisy voices her frustrations when …show more content…
Though Daisy’s good looks and kindness are both positive assets, the unfamiliar wealth that accompanies her is what truly infatuates Gatsby. Daisy’s voice, which is repeatedly stressed throughout the novel, is said to be, “full of money (120).” Upon hearing the proposition that Daisy’s voice is full of money, Carraway writes, “That was it. I’d never understood before- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it…(120).” The reason Daisy’s money-filled voice is so charming is because it draws people into the idea that with Daisy life is profoundly good. This illusion causes Gatsby to spend five years tirelessly striving for financial status enough to win over Daisy’s affection. After making a name for himself, Gatsby sees Daisy for the first time in five years and is undoubtedly disappointed. Fitzgerald explains this phenomenon when he writes, “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart (96).” Gatsby is a hopeful man, and he believes that he can achieve the happiness of Daisy’s companionship through wealth. Carraway explains Gatsby’s pursuit and says, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.” Gatsby spent his final years earning vast amounts of money in attempt to fulfill his single dream, only to be left with an empty mansion and one friend for which to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Since the beginning, the main focus of living is acquiring more money and becoming as successful as possible. In the 1920's, people made money from the stock market, and illegal bootlegging. Since these people were hitting the jackpot, a rank called 'new money' was created. This rank, never overpowered 'old money' the most wealthiest, well-known and respected class. Possession of material wealth however, can't bring true happiness. Love is an important factor in this equation; when you don't have love, it is hard to be happy. Daisy Buchanan's case in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald proves this to its entirety. When having to decide between an empty marriage with her husband Tom and Jay Gatsby, her love, she chooses Tom. It is then…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a tragic hero whose tragic flaw is his blindness, which is caused by his love for Daisy; Fitzgerald emphasises this, “but his eyes dimmed a little…” by constant eyesight metaphors highlighting how his views are blurred by love. Until he returns to West Egg, his vision is evidently clear, he is so driven to become a success just to impress Daisy, once again highlighting that she is the cause of his blindness. What makes this so tragic is the argument that Gatsby’s love is not reciprocated and all his efforts of transforming himself into a rich man through crime, have been disregarded and unappreciated. Gatsbys mind is distorted by the idea that wealth will bring in Daisy, however their relationship remains as it was when he was the poor James Gatz, this is shown when Gatsby argued with Tom: ‘She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me…’ As Daisy still can’t be with Gatsby, it highlights one of the novel’s main themes of the importance of social status and wealth. As the importance of your background contributed towards your social status in the 1920’s, it isn’t a big surprise that Gatsby and Daisy do not end up together. As Gatsby’s background is not trusting and unclear whereas Tom was born into one of the most sucessful families in New York. Therefore as Daisy and Gatsby not ending up together does not shock the…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald follows the story of a group of the most affluent socialites of the East Coast, written from the perspective of the newly moved Nick Carraway. As Nick has just moved away from his upper class family in the Midwest to make his own fortune in the New York stock market, he finds himself to be the neighbor of the richest, most luxurious man on the island of West Egg: Jay S. Gatsby, who, at his incredible mansion, is credited with throwing the most extravagant parties his guests have ever seen. Across the bay from Nick and Gatsby sits the more fashionable East Egg, home to Nick’s distant cousin Daisy and her adulterous husband Tom Buchanan, both of whom come from quite privileged Old Money backgrounds.…

    • 1890 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They say that money is “the root of all evil. This novel exemplifies how the characters live for money and are controlled by it. Love and happiness cannot be bought, no matter how much money was spent. Tom and Daisy were married and even had a child, but they both still committed adultery. Daisy was with Gatsby and Tom was with Myrtle. They tried to find happiness with their lovers, but the risk of changing their lifestyles was not worth it. They were not happy with their spouses but could not find happiness with their lovers. Happiness cannot be found or bought. Daisy lost her love and respect for Gatsby when she found out he was a bootlegger. The important thing was not just having money, but where they money came from.…

    • 1538 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most people want to believe that money will buy you happiness, but Gatsby is a great example of how this is not the case. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby and Daisy becomes careless people because they believe that money will protect them forever. Gatsby went well out of his way to make money just to get the attention of Daisy. The desire for money drives all of the characters in The Great Gatsby to make poor choices that will come back to hurt their relationships and ruin their lives.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Her husband, Tom Buchannan also believed that Daisy was a prize. To Tom, it seemed, that Daisy was a trophy wife, someone he could show off, not care about, come back, and she would still be there. What brought them together was money, the thing that they both loved and had in common. Nick summed up her love for money well, “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force, of money…” (Fitzgerald, 151). Daisy didn’t care about who she loved more when she had to pick Tom or Gatsby; she cared about the money while she was making one of the biggest decisions of her life. To Tom, Daisy was a beautiful woman who he would love to have for his wife. Tom and Daisy were alike in that way, neither of them cared about personality or values; they cared about their reputation. It wasn’t Daisy’s disposition that made Tom marry her; it was her looks and reputation that he found attractive.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The idea of money in Gatsby is interesting. As we read the book, we can see that wealth guided characters into dark sides of life and to all kinds of wrong actions. The novel represents negative values of unethical events associated with each character. For example, Gatsby became so wealthy but his dream to win Daisy back could not be accomplished by using his wealth. Tom and Daisy were careless persons who believe that their money could save themEveryone knows that wealth does have value, but it is not the most important elements in someone’s lives and it might not necessary make individuals pleased. Today lots of people still act the same ways. Innocent people are being physically and emotionally being damaged in violence, and wealthy people…

    • 148 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the best books ever written by an American author. Before being deployed into the military, Jay Gatsby falls in love with a beautiful girl named Daisy. While he is away he believes she will stay loyal to him, but she ends up marrying a wealthy polo player named Tom Buchanan. She disbands Gatsby without hesitation because Tom has money and Gatsby was poor. From that day on, Gatsby knew he had to acquire wealth to win Daisy back over. In this time period, money was everything to them and people would go to great, unethical, extents just to be affluent. This caused people to rid their morals, creating a widespread problem.…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Although it is a sure sign of emotional instability, he knows Daisy is attracted to money. "‘She's got an indiscreet voice,' I remarked. ‘It's full of — 'I hesitated. ‘Her voice is full of money,' [Gatsby] said suddenly" (Fitzgerald 127). Gatsby goes to any lengths to make himself "worthy" of Daisy. He involves himself with the Mafia, and with organized crime, making himself enormous sums of wealth. However, this is not honest money, and unlike his outward appearance, he is not living the "American Dream", as it were. The festivities, the extravagant house, and the gleaming automobiles are in fact all lies in the sense that they were bought with dishonesty. This is yet another testament to how Gatsby is hopelessly fixated on Daisy, causing him to make decisions based on whether it will bring her nearer to him. Gatsby's obsession with tangible things is one of many indicators of his reckless desire to astound people in any way…

    • 1940 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    His very actions identified the morality and values of the 1% as he, and Daisy, showed that romantic infidelity goes both ways, and how easy it was to become a hypocrite. His marriage, which Gatsby points out later in the book, was under circumstance of wealth; Daisy, the unreliable character split between two men, believes it to be love. Tom’s obsession with uncovering Daisy’s past with Gatsby also shows his insecurity of losing Daisy. This possessive attitude could easily be explained away with his obligation to their marriage, but Tom had already been cheating with Myrtle. This breakaway from the idea of the perfect American family unearths the underlying patriarchal dominance of the 20s as Tom declares Daisy’s infidelity as unjust while evading the topic of his own…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Money Changes Everything” by Cyndi Lauper illustrates the way people center their desires on material things such as money. The speaker in the song leaves the poor man, solely because he does not have money, for the affluent one: “I’m leaving you tonight…There was one thing we weren’t really thinking of and that’s money” (Lauper 1, 6-7). Like Cyndi Lauper, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the way people often center their desires on material things such as money in The Great Gatsby. Daisy falls in love with Gatsby, who is a poor man at the time, and when Gatsby leaves for the war, Daisy marries Tom Buchanan, who is a rich man, because he is “old money,” meaning he will always have the money and status to support Daisy. When Gatsby returns from the war, his pursuit of Daisy’s love reveals his materialism and he eventually becomes rich for Daisy and believes that he can win her back because he now has money. The Great Gatsby demonstrates the way the materialistic desire for wealth negatively affects both Daisy and Gatsby, which warns Fitzgerald’s audience of the dangers of materialism.…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Daisy is a woman of inherited wealth; a member of the rich elite class in society. Nick mentions that Gatsby “[takes] her under false pretenses. [Nick] [doesn’t] mean that [Gatsby] [has] traded on his phantom millions, but he [has] deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he [lets] her believe that he [is] a person from much the same stratum as herself--- that he was fully able to take care of her,” (149). Gatsby understands that he is not qualified by the unwritten laws of society to be with Daisy. He knows that such a relationship will be shunned by the laws of social life during this time. However, the forbidden fruit is the sweetest. Even though a relationship with Daisy is essentially prohibited, Gatsby strives to be of her class and for the time being lies to her about his social status. He makes her believe that he can support her comfortably in order to give himself a chance at winning over her heart. He learns that Daisy is swayed by money just as much as she is swayed by the looks or charm of a man. Therefore he devotes his life, from the moment of his first kiss with Daisy to the present time, to accruing a vast amount of wealth and notoriety. He purchases a mansion across the bay from Daisy’s residence perhaps in the hopes that one day she may be interested in this grandiose house lit up like a…

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby

    • 1038 Words
    • 5 Pages

    People should be defined by their beliefs, values, and interests which vary from experiences they have had in life. However, the main factor that defines how worthy a man is for Daisy is their wealth rather than their attributions. The plot of The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald is mainly revolved around Tom and Gatsby’s love for Daisy and the struggles that comes with it. Tom and Gatsby are both very different characters from the way they communicate with the other characters to the way they express their love for Daisy. Tom and Gatsby individually have different beliefs and values throughout the story; however, share one interest that unfortunately neither feels they are able to fully grasp.…

    • 1038 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This book, The Great Gatsby, written by F Scott. Fitzgerald in 1925, is a novel dedicated to the inhabitants of wealth, power, and social status. It was mainly about this astonishingly wealthy man known as Jay Gatsby who dreamed of revitalizing the love that was once present between him and Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald has written this story as a connection to his past life to show that acquiring the American Dream is not always accessible. Throughout the story, the author has embedded many symbolic figures and themes, some representing his life, but most were mainly intended to show various amounts of emotion, and to encourage creative thinking for the reader. Fitzgerald not only written these symbolic meanings on numerous characters, but also…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays