How Does Fitzgerald Use Materialism In The Great Gatsby

Love is a concept for which the majority of people strive to attain. This is especially evident through Jay Gatsby within The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, from the first encounter between Gatsby and his love interest, Daisy, it is evident their relationship is doomed. The main purpose of Daisy and Gatsby’s initial encounter is to provide evidence that Daisy’s affection is undeserving of Gatsby’s efforts, as a relationship between the two characters would never successfully happen. F. Scott Fitzgerald proves this using subtext when referring to materialism as a factor for love, pathetic fallacy through weather, and alludes to light and dark imagery while he describes the characters through the process of the encounter. As

He describes Gatsby with the use of a series of words to indicate how he feels when around Daisy. For example he states, “He literally glows”(Fitzgerald 89). He goes on to describe him as a new person in her presence when he says, “A new being radiated from him and filled the little room”(Fitzgerald 89). Fitzgerald makes it obvious Daisy gives Gatsby a joyful new way of feeling. These feelings are especially evident when the weather is nice during this encounter. However, when the rain comes again, Fitzgerald uses a different way to describe Gatsby. He says, “but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said”(Fitzgerald 93). Furthermore, through this paragraph, he continues to use words such as diminished and vanished, which all are used to contradict the previous way he is described. This can be used to indicate that, because of Daisy’s life she already has, a relationship between the two would be unsuccessful. Therefore, the immense amount of effort Gatsby uses to try and gain Daisy’s love is unworthy of his

The relationship between the two of them would never successfully happen as seen through materialistic thoughts, pathetic fallacy, and imagery. In the essay ‘The Adolescents Version of the American Dream’ it states, “The Great Gatsby, for all its wonders, gives us little besides two alternatives to intimacy and marriage, two polar extremes by which to measure how to love, both unsatisfactory, both destined for failure”(Miller 126). This is referring to Gatsby’s impossible want for romance with Daisy, or Daisy staying with Tom’s self centered personnel. Through the weather and imagery in the initial encounter it is obvious this point serves a valid purpose. Daisy’s materialistic mindset not only provides reason for Daisy and Gatsby to fail together, but Tom and Daisy as well. As materialism is what seems to be the center of what Daisy bases her decisions off of, Daisy and Gatsby will never happily be together, not to mention the underlying proof Fitzgerald lies within the weather and