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Materialistic Society In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

1330 Words6 Pages

Literature is a reflection of society, comprising of its flaws and beauty, as authors explore aspects which are often overlooked and ignored. In literature, characters are bound by the adversities that society has generated. Society is the foundation for challenging adversities because individuals are molded by the environment that raises them and aim to conform/ fit in with social norms even when they do not meet the needs of those individuals. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts Tom Buchanan as a product of a materialistic society, where his self-indulgence creates a constraint on the formation of fulfilling relationships that provide happiness. He is ignorant of the fact that physical comforts will never satisfy …show more content…

These principles are not reflective in the relationship that Tom shares with his wife, Daisy. They were visibly unequally matched for each other with Tom primarily marrying Daisy because she displayed the characteristics of a perfect trophy wife, a status symbol. She was “the golden girl” and when others see Daisy by his side, it gives him an air of wealth. He thought he had the American Dream, a perfect wife and a beautiful daughter. Tom Buchanan was a man who valued appearances, appearances that to anyone outside of his home would idealized. Yet, this marriage had little foundation, because Tom never attempted to get intimate with Daisy. She had been flattered when Tom had asked her hand in marriage, due to his “wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position” (120). They did not love each other causing distance between the two of them and leaving Daisy vulnerable to the attentions of Gatsby. Yet, when he learned of their relationship, he showed no fear because she was not going to leave him, especially not for someone who would have “to steal the ring he put on her finger”(106). Tom saw marriage as an economic exchange where people are bought with wealth. However, Tom’s materialistic urges could never understand that the love of people cannot be bought like possessions. Tom was never satisfied because he looked at relationships through the eyes of wealth, making Daisy a possession, rather than an

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