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Money In The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby written by Fitzgerald shows readers a furious “Jazz Age”. People were crazy about money, even taken advantage of any ways in order to possess property, violating the moral conscience or breaking the law though. People considered wealth as the symbol of success and convinced by the desire for the material that only money can make them happy; only having money, wealth, and social status can make their dreams come true. There are a variety of embodiments of money worship in this novel, as Daisy most typical. As “the golden girl”, Daisy’s life goal is the pursuit of the eternal happiness, but she insistently sets this kind of joy on money. From the auditory and visual senses, Daisy shows the personality of shallow and worldly through …show more content…

In such a materialistic world, Daisy can’t find the hope to support, and she needs to seek some "real things" for a sense of security, as a weak and bewildered woman. At this moment，“she looked me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged”（p25）But as Mrs. Daisy Buchanan, she lived with discontent, especially being painful about love life. As she told Nick that “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.”(P13) The virtue of her marriage satisfies her own demand for wealth, status, but her heart was dominated by emptiness and ignorant. Daisy numbly enjoyed this happiness, which give her mind to that the significant of material comfort for ones who were accustomed to live a life of luxury her importance. Nevertheless, from another point of view, the marriage between Daisy and Buchanan is a combination of beauty and wealth, without true love. The satisfaction of material couldn’t take place of spiritual enrichment, so Daisy searched for spirit support——Gatsby. “Please, Tom! I can’t stand this any more.”(P176) When she learned that Gatsby was not from the wealthy institutions like themselves, she immediately returned under the umbrella of Tom that constituted by money and power. She abandoned Gates as worn-out shoes, and selected him as a victim of his own evil, which

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby portrays the lives of wealthy Americans living in the success and grandeur of the Roaring Twenties. Within the novel, the epoch’s legacy of material want and the need for human connection clash in the form of Daisy Buchanan. Her inner conflict between the two desires are symbolized in Jay’s letter and Tom’s pearls. Jay’s letter to Daisy Buchanan proves the romance of their relationship, while Tom’s pearls ultimately represents Daisy’s decision to abandon that love for wealth.

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Daisy appears to have it as she has money, a good husband, and is high class. But, we soon see Daisy lacks morals and happiness. She only married Tom because he could provide her with a life she wanted. He had money and could provide her with any materialistic thing she could ever want. But, she still is lacking happiness as she constantly wants more and can't focus and enjoy the now.

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby,” Daisy Buchanan struggles to free herself from the power of both Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, whom both use their wealth and high standings as a way to dictate power over and impress others. Fitzgerald purposely develops Daisy as selfish and “money hungry” character when she chooses Tom, a rich man, over Gatsby, a poor man (who she was in love with), which establishes her desire for power that she never achieves.

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It has long been said that money can’t buy happiness, but still people continue to use it’s acquisition to try to make themselves happy. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the title character struggles with this realization. The book is set in New York during the ‘Roaring 20’s’, a time famous for its parties and lavishness. The book examines the attitudes toward money within the upper particularly through the lense of the new-money title character, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby dedicated his life to the acquisition of money with the goal of eventually acquiring the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan.

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Does money make the characters in the Great Gatsby happier? In the book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby was dating Daisy, who he truly loved then he had to go fight in World War I so then Tom took advantage of that and married Dasiy who was using tom only for his money. Will Gatsby and Daisy's love be the same as before when Gatsby went to war?

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Money is the driving factor in the world. The impact that money can have on people is shown throughout Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. His characters are part of many different social classes, but money is not the only thing that impacts their lives, how they receive it is also critical. The means people use to obtain their wealth has a large impact on how they conduct themselves.

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Her destructive hamartia is the constant internal struggle against hedonistic desires. Daisy’s inability to resist temptation in pursuit for pleasure is shown on the day before her wedding when she indecisively says, “Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say: ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’” (Fitzgerald, 76). This is her epiphanic moment; she realizes a decision must be made that will impact the duration of her life — the choice between the ambition for wealth or true love.

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In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values. One of the major themes explored in this novel is the Hollowness of the Upper Class. The entire book revolves around money including power and little love. Coincidentally the three main characters of the novel belong to the upper class and throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how this characters have become corrupted and have lost their morality due to excess money and success and this has led them to change their perspective towards other people and they have been portrayed as short-sighted to what is important in life. First of all, we have the main character of this novel, Gatsby who won’t stop at nothing to become rich overnight in illegal dealings with mobsters such as Wolfsheim in order to conquer Daisy’s heart.”

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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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Daisy Buchanan’s idea of happiness is quite simple: she just wants “her life shaped now, immediately…the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality…close at hand” (Fitzgerald 96) Being from a wealthy and respectable family, Daisy is used to live conveniently, “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life,” (Fitzgerald 159) which is why she wants to maintain that financial stability in life, and also to have a husband beside her. Note that “close at hand” means that Daisy doesn’t want to go to extreme lengths to achieve her happiness. Because of that, Daisy ends up marrying Tom instead of Gatsby, as Daisy cannot wait for Gatsby that long in order for her to attain the stability that she needs in her life, especially since the idea of living a prosperous life with Tom is right around the corner. The three things that she desires in life, “love, money, and unquestionable practicality,” seems appropriate to her lavish lifestyle and the way that her family

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Daisy is an ignorant woman, she destroys Gatsby’s dream and felt no guilt in leaving him. She feels safe as long as she had her money. She uses her money to cover up her wrong doings. Her ignorance and carelessness cause her to not understand the hard work behind the American

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2397 Words | 10 Pages

The era’s “perfect woman”, Daisy Buchanan, is a bubbly, conflicted woman whose choice is between two men: her husband, Tom Buchanan, and her former lover Jay Gatsby. Since Daisy’s character was written in the 1920s, women’s characters were based on the traditional women of the time period, and many women then were still seen as objects and as less desirable than men. When Daisy is invited to Gatsby’s mansion, her first sight of him in many years upon seeing his expensive clothing, she is so overcome with emotion that she begins to weep “with a strained sound” and begins to “cry stormily” showing her true reaction to something as petty as material objects (92). She continues, claiming that

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484 Words | 2 Pages

Gatsby himself realizes Daisy’s obsession with money: “‘She never loved you, do you hear?’ he cried. ‘She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me’” (Fitzgerald 130). The quote reveals

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1909 Words | 8 Pages

An important theme in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the corruption of morals because of wealth. It doesn’t matter if one comes from old or new money, wealth will corrupt the morality of even the humblest. The first example of wealth corrupting morals is in the indifference to infidelity between the married Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. The next example of wealth corrupting morals is seen in Jordan Baker’s actions to keep her luxurious lifestyle. Third, Jim Gatsby’s pursuit of wealth lead to the corruption of his morals.

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In an attempt to win Daisy back from her lifestyle of “Old Money”, Gatsby becomes excessively greedy with his money. While he himself may not care about wealth, he knows Daisy does. Therefore, when Daisy comes to his mansion, he flaunts his expensive shirts. “‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”

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