Scott Fitzgerald's Use Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

Is the American Dream purely a dream- or is it something more. For hundreds of years the American Dream has been an essential part of the American conscious. The gist of the dream-as it arose in the revolutionary period and the 1800s- was that anyone can rise to achieve their dreams based solely on their skill and attributes. The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald implies that this version of the American Dream has been corrupted by the quest for money above all else. What was once envisioned as a “ city upon a shining hill” by the early American settlers has transfused into “ a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.“The initial American Dream of achieving dreams while upholding spiritual values his transformed

Ultimately through the medium of his novel The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald uses materialism to portray his view that in the 1920s America had lost the American Dream and become a decadent and immoral society.

The novel takes place after the ravages of the great war had ended and people were savoring the rapidly expanding consumer culture of the 1920s. Many characters were willingly embracing the new philosophy idea that money can buy happiness. Fitzgerald employs Gatsby as a primary example of this growing philosophy. Gatsby who spends all his time raising his social and financial positions only to show the meaningless of the materialistic culture. Instead of working hard, a core tenant of the American Dream, Gatsby chooses to break the law and illegally sell alcohol in order to gain that attention of Daisy. Gatsby believes he is in love with Daisy, but in truth he is much more in love with what Daisy represents. After all Gatsby describers Daisy as, “her voice [being] filled with

As a heir of the vieau rich(old rich), by default she possess even vaster prestige than Gatsby. From her youth Fitzgerald paints her as a child of materialism; “ “For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and 6 pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.“ By describing her life as artificial, Fitzgerald is saying that Daisy lives in a gilded cage and is unable to escape the grasp of materialism. When Gatsby gives Daisy a tour of his mansion, she doesn’t reveal any emotions towards Gatsby until he presents her with elaborate 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." It is notable that Daisy chooses to reveal emotion only at this grandiose display of wealth. This speaks to materialism and proves the validity of Fitzgerald’s epigraph “ Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too. Til she cry ‘Lover, gold- hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you.’”(Fitzgerald ). It takes wealth to unlock the key to Daisy’s cage. Yet, as a result of Gatsby’s bootlegging and Tom’s more established, Daisy refuses to leave her gilded cage and remains with Tom despite her emotional feeling towards Tom. In essence, Fitzgerald is stating