Examples Of Conspicuous Consumption In The Great Gatsby

Charles A. Jaffe once stated “It’s not your salary that makes you rich, it’s your spending habits”, which is really similar to Thorstein Veblen's idea. Thorstein Veblen argued once how Conspicuous Consumption takes place in the life of a wealthy person. Conspicuous Consumption is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power. In the story The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, characters Tom and Gatsby proves Veblen critique right due to the actions of them showing off their wealth throughout the book. Veblen believes that in the leisure class, everyone does the action of buying items to show off their wealth, and this is known to be as Conspicuous Consumption. In his argument,

Throughout the book, Gatsby was known to throw these huge parties, that to enter no one needed an invitation. These parties were known to be amazing and very known, in fact people would go repeatedly. When Nick was with Jordan and her friends at the party, Jordan’s friend commented “‘I like to come’ [...] ‘I always have a good time’”. This opinion from Jordan’s friend explains how she thinks of Gatsby’s parties. This will gain reputability to Gatsby since his parties are amazing, and for that same reason he does not need to invite anyone to his parties. Even though we may not know it yet in the book, but Gatsby must feel proud of how amazed people feel to be at his party. These parties are also a way of showing his wealth, and in fact he may feel honorific about the attention they are giving to his house and party. According to Veblen, this is part of the idea of Conspicuous Consumption. On his argument, he states “The consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific”. This may support the idea of Gatsby’s pride of showing his wealth and getting attention out of it. He may not only continue to do the parties just to get Daisy to show up as we find out later in the book, but he may also do it with his second intention which is to show his wealth. Therefore, Gatsby may throw his

Veblen states in his argument “He consumes freely and of the best”. When Veblen states “he” he is meaning the person who has money. A character who gets to prove Veblen right is Tom, Daisy’s husband. On chapter 7 after the fight between Tom and Gatsby, Tom decides to drink. Nick gets to state “Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whiskey”. Whisky was illegal back in this time, and whisky even up to this day may be an expensive drink. This is an example that Tom, a wealthy man, does not drink any ordinary drink. He drinks whisky. He gets to consume this drink due to his wealth, which is an example Conspicuous Consumption. This is how Tom gets to prove Veblen’s idea of showing off his wealth from the items they consume is