Materialism In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s the roaring 20’s; people are drinking, adults are partying, and the poor are dreaming; everyone wants a piece of fame and fortune from the economic boom. But by doing so, the people now had a greater disregard for each other. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel of The Great Gatsby, he wanted to capture the essence of this decade: materialism. To seize this moment, Fitzgerald revolved his story’s plot (the crooked people who live in the Egg) and characters (the false people of the Egg) around this appalling trait, and concluded his book with the overall effect of materialism; the death of an “innocent” man. Either scavenging in the valley of ashes or sailing in the Egg, each person always wanted something better: a better car, a better house, a better lifestyle, or even a better spouse.
When Jay Gatsby is murdered by the rage of George B. Wilson, Nick feels necessary to organize his funeral. But when calling Meyer Wolfsheim, a close business partner of Gatsby, he responds by saying, “[he] can't do it--[he] can't get mixed up in it" (171). As a close colleague of Gatsby, his career was within illegal boundaries and knew he couldn’t risk his own life (and industry) for the sake of Gatsby. At the end, we realize Wolfsheim was nothing more than a business partner and only used him for profit; symbolizing the greedy world of America’s market. At that time, people made relationships between each other (romantically/financially) for their own reasons, and once they had no use for them they would instantly throw them away into; never caring for them again. If you were only a friend for them, what use were you to