Great Gatsby Themes

Love and money – these two were the central themes of the 2013 adaptation of the movie The Great Gatsby. The former was more prevalent in the manner with which the plot was unveiled, and stood as a driving force for most of the events that occurred. However, the matter of money was a less obvious and more underlying theme that surrounded the plot.
First and foremost, Gatsby was publicly known as a wealthy man – at least, this was so during the latter part of his life – what with his extravagant home and his equally extravagant parties. However, the viewer’s conundrum rooted not on how he managed to sustain this life; rather, on how he rose to this status in the first place. During the succeeding parts of the film, it was unveiled that Gatsby had been a dirt-poor young man who was born to a family that was nowhere near well-off. Nevertheless, it was his drive and ambition that led him to his success – those two qualities, indeed, along with his bootleg and illegal ventures with Meyer Wolfsheim, selling liquor, as implied by his rival, Tom Buchanan. The question still remains: how can an underground business such as Gatsby’s sustain his lavish lifestyle?

In fact, at the rate of his extravagance, he would be digging himself into debt. During the peak of his illegal business, Gatsby was the figure of wealth – the very persona of opulence. Realistically speaking, however, his bootleg ventures of selling liquor would’ve been a losing business that would not have been enough to maintain the lifestyle he had projected to himself, to Daisy, and to everyone who saw him as a rich and successful