Daisy's Obsession With Money In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is an accurate representation of American leisure class in the 1920s, where social status was religion and where “very much of squalor and discomfort will be endured before the last trinket or the last pretense of pecuniary decency is put away.” (Veblen 8) That is, many people felt that money was the only way to achieve happiness. People quickly became slaves to money, working hard to obtain money and working harder to keep it and show it off. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the people’s obsession with money, no matter the outcomes, in the Roaring Twenties by offering a glimpse into the lives of the opulent rich and the effects their wealth has on their relationships. Daisy’s obsession with money is clear; she ran off to be married to Tom Buchanan, a rich but unintelligent polo player. After meeting Tom, she quickly married him “with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before.” (Fitzgerald 75) Daisy obviously thinks that Tom can elevate her social status with his money and his “high bred manners and ways of living.” (Veblen 4) Even when Gatsby, the man she really loves, asks her to run away with him, she refuses, instead choosing to remain where she is comfortably rich.

Daisy represents everything Gatsby ever wanted: money, status, and happiness. Gatsby creates whole charade, complete with a new house and a new story to try to win her over. He also mistakenly thinks that Daisy will come to him after he demonstrates his wealth with “costly entertainments, such as the potlatch or the ball… to serve this end.” (Veblen 4) Unfortunately for Gatsby, by the time he had asked Daisy to come with him, his charades “had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice,” and his parties seemed garish to her. (Fitzgerald 148) As he feels his obsession slowly slipping away from him,