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What Role Does Money Play In The Great Gatsby

677 Words3 Pages

What is wealth? Wealth is the abundance of valuable possessions or money. Wealth in The Great Gatsby plays a major role; it can get you to the top of the social hierarchy, buy you nice shirts, or it can throw elaborate parties in your name. Wealth can even buy love, but it can never buy happiness or genuine, real love. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, money is used to demonstrates the distance between people.
First off, there are two types of money: old money and new money. Old money are the people who live in East Egg. Old money represents people who aren’t irresponsible with their money. They have been rich throughout their family history; their money is passed down from ancestors. Although East Eggers have everything they could ever dream …show more content…

An example of new money, West Egg, would be Jay Gatsby. Gatsby flashes his money for Daisy to notice him. He got rich quickly for Daisy. Jay threw elaborate parties and owned a tasteless car to show his money. The third social cluster is no money, or the Valley of Ashes. …show more content…

Because Daisy is a conceited, selfish, money-hungry character, she gave in. She has always loved Gatsby, but he was never rich enough for her. She could not wait any longer for him, so she married Tom for money. This gave Gatsby time, for he knew he could climb the social ladder, but it had to be alone. Within the 5 years without Daisy, Gatsby became involved with illegal drug business and became rich quickly. Everything Jay ever did was to win Daisy back. He moved into a house across the water from her, threw partied to attract her, and so on. Once Daisy and Gatsby reunited, Daisy fell in love with her former lover once again. She became upset because she realized she could have had money and love with Jay, but instead she picked just money with Tom. Jay’s money separated Daisy and him once

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What is a man without his wealth? Some will say nothing, others will say something. Some argue that people who inherit their money would be nothing. An example of this is the Kardashians or Tom Buchanan. Tom inherited all his money from his family and hasn't made a dime of it.

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Whereas, the “new money” crowd is seen as reckless and less trustworthy due to the fact that they are more likely to have bad spending habits and be extremely flashy. This is because these people have all of a sudden come into a great deal of money . Lastly people that are “old money” are more likely to be highly

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In this novel the wealthy are even separated into two classes; old money and new money. Jordan Baker as with the Buchanans all possess old or family money and all live in East Egg. These people look down upon those who live in West Egg because they did not acquire their money the regular path but instead worked for it. At one time Jordan asked Nick presumptuously, “you live in West Egg?” (Fitzgerald 11).

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It's mostly full of people who worked during their lives in whatever way to earn their money. Although they earned what they have, they are often looked down upon by residents of the east egg. “Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square” (Fitzgerald 12) this displays Tom's perception of power over the people around him through his given title and status. The people from the east egg believe they have power over the people around them. Observing Nick and Gatsby's actions we find that residents of the West may have a better understanding and grasp on life through earning their position.

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While both East Egg and West Egg are famously known to be where the richest of the rich live, they act very different with how they show their money. East Egg is the old money side of town, and the people living there are more discrete with how they show their money which is the equivalent to Myers Park or Quail Hollow in Charlotte. West Egg was formed by the people who were new to wealth. People who live in West Egg show their money with fancy cars and large non-traditional houses like Ballantyne or Carmel. The people in East Egg are snobby and greedy, but they are sophisticated with their money because they have been surrounded by it their entire life.

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Both are in the same class of wealth, but new money and old money spend their wealth differently, and have different maturities while handling their money. The newly rich, live in West Egg, like Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a perfect example of newly wealthy people not being smart with their spending or what they do with their money. He spends his weekend throwing lavish parties, spending excessively on food and beverages--all in an effort to impress people, and not to mention, our Daisy back to him (even though she never

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The old money considers this tacky, indicating their disapproval and superiority over any class lower than them. As incredulous as it may seem, the highly perceptive author initially illustrates intimations of the class rivalry through placing the Egg towns literally oppose to each other across the water. The tension over authority and power seems to permeate throughout the Long Island. However, the water that separates Daisy and Gatsby represents the social distance between them and how even with his wealth, the latter cannot reach the social status of the former. On the contrary, the people inhabiting in the Valley of Ashes live by the minimal commodities of life and the location below the East and West Egg underscores the lower social position of the people.

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Daisy was from a high class family and she was old money. Gatsby wanted to be like her and he liked that she was rich. He fell in love with the idea of being with a rich girl. Just like he made his fake persona Jay Gatsby.

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Money plays a major role in everyone’s life, whether or not we choose to believe it. Money will change people for the worse in most cases, except for the select few that know how to maintain themselves for the better with or without money. It shows who is controlled by money and who can control money. This novel elaborately shows how money affects Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, and George Wilson. The first character that shows how money affects them is Tom Buchanan.

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A complete and udder success. This self motivation came from his love for daisy that made him into the person he became and because of this self motivation he achieved upward. Jay Gatsby’s love for Daisy was so consuming that he earned a fortune in order to win her back from Tom Buchanan. Nick: “It was a strange coincidence,” I said. “But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”

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Not only was wealth passed down, outdated and impractical values were also inherited. Tom and Daisy are the two most notable members of Old money, with Tom being the most vocal with his views. He states “it’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” (17). With a desperate desire to remain in power, Tom and Daisy try to differentiate themselves as much as possible.

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Their relationship started before Gatsby went to war, yet would become complicated when Gatsby stays away for a long time; Gatsby’s reasoning was that he wanted to become rich enough to support Daisy so they can be together forever. The two distant lovers were faithful at first,as they wrote letters to each other yet would become impersonal as Daisy would eventually break their promise by finding and marrying Tom Buchanan. This shows that

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