Examples Of Happiness In The Great Gatsby

Some people think the saying “money buys happiness” is just a play with words, while some people truly believe that money buys happiness. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by author F. Scott Fitzgerald, just by reading the beginning of the story, you can easily pick up Fitzgerald is someone who truly means money buys happiness. In the novel, it is explained that in New York during the 1920’s there were 3 main places to live. These places included New York, the West Egg, and the East Egg. No matter where you lived you had money, but depending on where you lived the type of money was different. In the novel, Fitzgerald explains the theme of wealth and how the rich were different from other people back in the 1920s.

The theme of wealth

Unlike Tom, he does not flaunt his money to people below him by buying unnecessary things, but he unintentionally flaunts his money with his grand parties hosted at his mansion. Gatsby portrays being rich as something that could happen to anyone. The way he came up to fame is why he is portrayed the way he is. His figure of speech, “old sport” is just one example of how he is a different type of rich from Tom and Daisy or any other person from the East Egg. He went from the bottom of life to the very top by himself. According to the novel, it states “ He owned some drugstores, a lot of drugstores. He built them up himself.” (Fitzgerald 69). This quote alone shows how Gatsby built himself up, and even though he has extreme wealth he lives on the West Egg with Nick. Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a very rich character, but not the same kind of rich as Tom and Daisy. He is a civilized, empathetic rich unlike most people with wealth in his

Apart from the East and West Egg, there is the Valley of Ashes, where characters such as George and Myrtle Wilson live. The Valley of Ashes is the opposite of the Eggs, filled with smoke and ash, very run down, and made for the poor, more unfortunate people. Unlike the people from the eggs, the characters of the valley are portrayed as very gross, run-down, poor individuals. Fitzgerald makes them seem more like zombies rather than actual people. According to the novel, it says “Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.” (Fitzgerald 22). Fitzgerald shows how because these people do not have the type of money the others have they are less than everyone else or ranked below them as people. Fitzgerald portrays them to be less than people because of their lack of wealth. By doing so, it also shows how he is portraying the rich to be better, or being above everyone