Theme Of Wealth In The Great Gatsby

As the United States has proven time and time again, a country of concentrated wealth is often no better than one of widespread poverty. After World War I, American wealth and consumerism skyrocketed, and author F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the social implications of this altered economy in his novel The Great Gatsby. In particular, Fitzgerald highlights the way in which one’s perceived wealth was used to determine his or her intelligence, charm, sophistication, and overall worth as a human being, creating the misguided (yet unshakable) notion that to be rich meant to be better. In economist Thorstein Veblen’s opinion, this association between wealth and superiority led to an American landscape which valued frivolity above all else, with inessential

According to Veblen, “Those who stand near the higher and the highest grades of the wealthy leisure class, in point of birth, or in point of wealth, or both, outrank the remoter-born,” a statement exemplified by the fact that Daisy chooses the well-bred Tom, whom she does not love, over Gatsby, the “remoter-born” man she adores (“Conspicuous Consumption” 1). After Daisy’s rejection, Gatsby is left broken and alone, with nothing of real value: “He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast” (160). Gatsby’s life has been stripped of its romance, its beauty and joy, and now all he has left are his things, useless and trivial in the face of heartbreak. He has listened to what his country has told him matters––money––and now finds himself with full pockets and an empty