Examples Of Greed In The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby does many wrong things in order to meet his dream. Gatsby is a secretive guy that lots of people don’t know about, or even know who he is. As he climbs his ladder to success people begin to ask questions about his wealth. He is apart of the newer rich people in the West Egg, but no one knows how he’s so rich. People wonder where all this money is coming from. Gatsby's dream in this novel is to be with Daisy, his long lost girlfriend he met in Louisville. The problem is is that he came from a poor background; and Daisy is the complete opposite. The things he does to become rich and get Daisy aren’t right necessarily, but to go from poor to a self made millionaire is extraordinary. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

One thing is how he sold alcohol illegally to make tons of money. When Gatsby and Tom were arguing Tom confronts Gatsby about the illegal stuff that he found out saying, “He and this Wolfshiem... and sold grain alcohol over the counter”(Fitzgerald 140). Gatsby and his business partner Wolfshiem sold alcohol illegally over the counter in liquor stores in Chicago. This made Gatsby extremely rich because alcohol was illegal at this time, so of course people are going to buy it. This was just one step for him to get to his dream. Another thing we find out is that he sold illegal bonds to people. After Gatsby died he got a call to his house about one of the deals messing up saying, “They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter”(Fitzgerald 73). We find out Gatsby was selling fake bonds to make money. This is very illegal but taking the risk made him lots of money adding to his wealth. These two illegal things made him very wealthy, but also were two very risking ideas. This is a good example of how he does the wrong thing for a positive reason, which would be getting

Most people know Gatsby as Jay Gatsby, this name that everyone knows him by is a lie. In order to change his old life he had to change his name and basically start a new family tree. Gatsby tells people that he is from San Francisco and his name is Jay Gatsby, both not being true. He tells us that his actual name is James Gatz saying, “...James Gatz of North Dakota...”(Fitzgerald 105). He lied about both his name and where he was from, so that he could look like he wasn’t from a poor family; or make him look better. Which leads into his next lie about how wealthy he is. Gatsby also talks about his family being wealthy, and that he inherited a great amount of wealth from them. Which isn’t true because in the book it says, “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”(Fitzgerald 105). This can be looked at in both a bad way and a good way. It’s bad because he lied to people about his wealth and his name, which is something you shouldn’t do. This can also be looked at in a good way. Now people won’t see the bad side of Gatsby or the poor side, and will only see the part that he wants people to see. Yes he did do something wrong, but now he made a name out of himself making these wrong decisions