Examples Of Old Money In The Great Gatsby

“The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about fortune, love, and greed. These topics are heavily portrayed through the theme of Old Money v. New Money. Old Money v. New Money is essentially representing the divide between the people who are born rich, (old money), and the people who have recently acquired their wealth (new money). This is further shown by the literal divide of the two groups of people in their respective towns; East Egg and West Egg, Throughout the duration of the novel, the main characters that we are introduced to (Nick, Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, and George), all represent different walks of life inside the 2 fictitious groups. These 2 contrasting cities develop the theme through examining the different attitudes of people from the cities, the social construct of the two cities, and lastly the effect that this developing class rivalry has

East Egg is the city consisting of mostly of people who inherited their wealth. In a literal sense, their money is old, and West Egg resident’s money is new. It’s interesting to really delve into the social construct of the cities, because it really isn’t all black and white. For example, even though Gatsby is from West Egg, he was a very poor farm boy and had to completely reinvent himself to become who he was. Nick, describing Gatsby stated: "So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end." (Fitzgerald 6.105). Essentially, at this time, New Money was looked down upon because it sometimes came from a questionable background; point and case: Gatsby. Tom points this out by stating: “I found out what your drug-stores were. He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter." (Fitzgerald 7.133). This complicates things, and serves as a major turning point in the