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Examples Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

1174 Words5 Pages

Money and materialism From bright cars to lavish parties, The Great Gatsby studies the seductive power of materialism and the dangers of chasing wealth. Set in the roaring twenties the novel explores the themes of wealth and materialism and shows the consequences of a life diverged from everything but wealth. In the novel, we witness the characters' relentless pursuit of money and material possessions in an attempt to feel better and live better than everyone else. However, the novel also argues that while money can indeed buy access to these things, it cannot buy true happiness. The Great Gatsby’s central theme shows us how wealth and materialistic gain is the downfall of one's values and relationships, reality, and obsession. Although Tom …show more content…

The characters in the story are consumed by their desire for money, status, and material possessions, and their lives revolve around the pursuit and acquisition of wealth. Fitzgerald reflects the American dream through the character of Gatsby displaying him as the model to follow for the American dream, he’s got the money and freedom to do what he wants when he wants. Fitzgerald conveys through Gatsby's character that despite achieving wealth, the materialism of the American Dream does not guarantee happiness. As the story progresses we start to see cracks in his perfect American dream, and he crumbles down from the unsurmountable weight his illegal actions brought upon him and he dies. Fitzgerald incapsulates Daisy as Gatsby’s American dream with “His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” (Chapter 6 pages 110,111) He had been accumulating ideas and expectations for a long time, and he believed that once he kissed her, everything he had built up in his mind would be true. His imagination of Daisy was incomprehensible, and the moment of physical contact, or the "incarnation," would represent the culmination of all his mental creations. He would finally experience his American dream, the reality of kissing her. Fitzgerald also uses the color green to symbolize Gatsby’s American dream, in the quote “But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious

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Wealthy people during the 1920s were very careless and shallow. As the richer, they became the more they fade away from their morals. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he writes about Gatsby’s destiny and how people during that society “helped” him. The only help that he got was people’s shallowness. Gatsby’s destiny was to have Daisy fall in love with him again by using his wealth.

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In the beginning of the novel Fitzgerald suggests that Gatsby is very well mannered and that his life is “put together well.” As the novel progresses the reader can see that he begins to contradict his life story. Fitzgerald begins to imply the feeling that Gatsby is unsuccessfully trying to run from his past. The life he was trying achieve for himself was his “American Dream.”, which was to be wealthy and worthy of being with the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. He was also trying to achieve the approval of the upper class of society.

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How Does Fitzgerald Create Happiness In The Great Gatsby

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​F. Scott Fitzgerald views the American dream as something that can’t be achieved no matter how hard you try, you’ll always hear about and think about it but never get a taste of it. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby and Daisy as a way to represent America’s affair and obsession with the dream; Gatsby wants to live his life with Daisy but pursuits only lead him down a downward spiral. Fitzgerald uses several literary tools portray his view on the Dream, The green light that sits on Daisy’s dock symbolizes Gatsby’s hopes and dreams of living a life with her, and the Valley of Ashes is the ugly consequences of our obsession with wealth. What makes Gatsby’s life so interesting is the secretive nature around his life and his wealth, no one truly knows his past and anything that is known is probably just another rumor.

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The American Dream suggests that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work. One of the major ways that Fitzgerald portrays this is by alluding to outside events or works of literature specifically from that time period. Another major relationship that develops in The Great Gatsby is between Tom and Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to things such as the World’s Fair and “The Love Nest” to display the eventual dismantling of Tom and Daisy’s relationship. Both of these separate plots consolidate under the idea of Gatsby trying to become the epitome of the American Dream, as seen through his strive for a “perfect life.”

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If we take a non-fiction book that was written in 1922, we might ask ourselves whether the book is relevant in this day and age. One such book was written by the author F. Scott Fitzgerald and it goes by; “The Great Gatsby”. The contents of the novel actually hold pretty valuable and relatable materials regarding materialism in today’s society. It also touches on the idea that people are not what they seem to be even if they say they are. This in and of itself is highly relevant because human behavior stays fairly comprehensible throughout history.

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The story follows Gatsby, who achieved the American dream in order to impress and win back his past lover, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby, as well as the other characters shown in the novel, live off materialistic values and have lost their souls and morals to money. The novel flaunts Gatsby's wealth and materialism, showing the reader

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Scott Fitzgerald is one of the great American novels of the twentieth century primarily due to book tackling the concept of the American Dream in the roaring twenties. Each of the characters in the novel symbolizes how the American Dream has turned from a form of hope and aspiration towards greed and lack of morals. The general focus of novel is on the character Jay Gatsby, who readers learn about through Nick Caraway’s point of view. Near the end of the novel, the reader learns that Gatsby is a self made man who came from a working class family, joined the army, and through extremely hard work makes a life for himself. Gatsby’s main goal in becoming wealthy was to be with his sweetheart from the army, Daisy.

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