Essay About Money In The Great Gatsby

638 Words2 Pages

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it shows that money can corrupt a person’s life. The novel’s main characters attain a life of luxury that they never want to leave. They allow the pursuit of money to control their every move. The main character, Jay Gatsby, tries to improve himself with his original dream. Nevertheless, after meeting with Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby became obsessed with earning enough money to win her over. Gatsby lies and tries to impersonate a person who has old money rather than new money. Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle demonstrate that the American Dream dead in Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. Gatsby’s dream is to find true love, he has everything he needs like new money, but what he doesn’t have is the social status that’s what his true love want and doesn’t pick him over Tom. In the novel, Gatsby attempts to rewrite the past to make it fit his idyllic version of events. His first meeting with Daisy reveals his intention to turn back time. At the luncheon at nick’s house, Gatsby “………” Ordinarily, Gatsby tries to improve himself with his original dreams. However, after meeting up with Daisy Buchanan, He now what’s = what is the money to try and win Daisy over. To win her over, Gatsby had to try to lie about his life and try to lie in order to look …show more content…

In the long run, Myrtle is a woman; she thinks that she is at a disadvantage. In the novel, Myrtle says “Well, I married him.” She says ambiguously, “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe…” (Chapter 2 or 1) Myrtle married George Wilson and thought that he knew something about love. However, all class.he wasn’t fit to lick her shoe, because all he is, is just a stick and can’t do anything to defend her or show his love for her. Furthermore, she gets murdered for the way she pursues her

Show More
Related

  • Money and Corruption in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    1745 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the time in our country's history called the roaring twenties, society had a new obsession, money. Just shortly after the great depression, people's focus now fell on wealth and success in the economic realm. Many Americans would stop at nothing to become rich and money was the new factor in separation of classes within society. Wealth was a direct reflection of how successful a person really was and now became what many people strived to be, to be rich. Wealth became the new stable in the "American dream" that people yearned and chased after all their lives. In the novel entitled the great Gatsby, the ideals of the so called American dream became skewed, as a result of the greediness and desires of the main characters to become rich and wealthy. These character placed throughout the novel emphasize the true value money has on a persons place in society making wealth a state of mind.

    Read More

  • Essay On Greed In The Great Gatsby

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    In both The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O'Connor, the protagonists are searching for some type of fulfillment in life, and they both believe that they can obtain it through material belongings and behaving in a carless fashion. Both protagonists, Jay Gatsby and Mr. Shiftlet, do obtain material possessions thinking that these possessions will make them happy; however, neither are able to obtain a sense of fulfillment. F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby and Flannery O'Connor in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" illustrate their disapproval of searching for fulfillment in life through possessions and careless behavior through motifs of greed, foreshadowing, and symbolism in order to allow their audiences to feel the same rejection toward searching for fulfillment and happiness in wealth and careless behavior.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1429 Words  | 3 Pages

    The thought of having an immense sum of money or wealth brings certain people to believe that money can buy almost anything, even happiness, however in reality, it will only lead to loss and false hope. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, writes a story about a man named Gatsby who is a victim of this so-called false hope and loss. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald clearly demonstrates and elaborates on the relationship between having money, wealth, and one's ethics or integrity by acknowledging the idea that the amount of money or wealth one has attained does affect the relationship between one's wealth and one's ethics whether or not in a pleasant manner. Although money and wealth may not be able to buy a person happiness, it surely can buy a person's mind and action, given that a wealthy person has a great deal of power. Fitzgerald analyzes the notion that even though many people dream of being both rich and ethical, it is not possible, and therefore, being poor and ethical is much better than trying to be rich and ethical.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Chase The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    Individuals often tend to forget what reality truly is and chase a dream which is not real. In the process, they forget the difference between right and wrong and engage in immoral actions in order to acquire their goal. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, individuals have the desire to chase the American Dream. A dream which revolves around discovery, individualism, and happiness; that a person from any social class can potentially become a wealthy individual. However, the American Dream is not factual and causes individuals to become someone who they are not and it leads to corruption and decay. This is shown when Gatsby lies to others about how he made his fortune, Daisy marries for wealth and

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: Chasing Dreams

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of a man of meager wealth who chases after his dreams, only to find them crumble before him once he finally reaches them. Young James Gatz had always had dreams of being upper class, he didn't only want to have wealth, but he wanted to live the way the wealthy lived. At a young age he ran away from home; on the way he met Dan Cody, a rich sailor who taught him much of what he would later use to give the world an impression that he was wealthy. After becoming a soldier, Gatsby met an upper class girl named Daisy - the two fell in love. When he came back from the war Daisy had grown impatient of waiting for him and married a man named Tom Buchanan. Gatsby now has two coinciding dreams to chase after - wealth and love. Symbols in the story, such as the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the contrast between the East Egg and West Egg, and the death of Myrtle, Gatsby, and Wilson work together to expose a larger theme in the story. Gatsby develops this idea that wealth can bring anything - status, love, and even the past; but what Gatsby doesn't realize is that wealth can only bring so much, and it’s this fatal mistake that leads to the death of his dreams.

    Read More

  • Free Essays - The Great Gatsby

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    As Matthew J. Bruccoli noted: “An essential aspect of the American-ness and the historicity of The Great Gatsby is that it is about money. The Land of Opportunity promised the chance for financial success.” (p. xi) The Great Gatsby is indeed about money, but it also explores its aftermath of greed. Fitzgerald detailed the corruption, deceit and illegality of life that soon pursued “the dream”. However, Fitzgerald entitles the reader to the freedom to decide whether or not the dream was ever free of corruption.

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby - Importance of Money

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    Three works Cited    Materialism started to become a main theme of literature in the modernist era. During this time the economy was good causing jazz to be popular, bootlegging common, and an affair meaning nothing (Gevaert). This negative view of money and the gross materialism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby serves to be a modern theme in the novel. Throughout the novel, the rich possess a sense of carelessness and believe that money yields happiness.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: Money, Power, and the Fulfillment of Dreams

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.

    Read More

  • Essay About Love of Money in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby – For the Love of Money. F. Scott Fitzgerald's most famous novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), is about many things that have to do with American life in the "Roaring Twenties," things such as the abuse of alcohol and the pursuit of other pleasures, including that elusive entity, the "American dream. " Mainly it is the story of Jay Gatsby, told by Gatsby's friend and neighbor, Nick Carraway, a bonds salesman in New York. Three other important characters are Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, and Myrtle Wilson. Nick is distantly related to Daisy, whose wealthy husband, Tom, went to college with Nick.

    Read More

  • Jay Gatsby: The Tragic Hero in The Great Gatsby

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...d on money that any means of a obtaining it were condoned, even if those means were unscrupulous. Though Gatsby at first attempted to achieve his goals of wealth through perseverance, he falls in love with Daisy—his tragic flaw—and is unable to see the corruption that lies beyond her physical beauty, charming manner and alluring voice. His fixation over Daisy, who is hollow at the core, demonstrates the futileness of Gatsby's dream, which is based on an idea, and not substance. The result of this corruption is that the motivation and ambition vanished and the dream was left with the pursuit of an empty goal—the corruption of the American Dream.

    Read More

  • Old Money In The Great Gatsby Essay

    1251 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book The Great Gatsby, the old money of the nineteen twenties who had accumulated their splendorous wealth over the course of generations, have always had an advantage over the poor, and people who are just beginning to climb the long strenuous ladder known as the American Dream. When Tom Buchanan is first introduced it is clear he is old money, a man who inherited his wealth from his family. Old money had numerous ways to continue to gain affluence, various people may choose an under the table means to gain economic prosperity, while others choose legitimate (nevertheless still corrupt) monopolies over the downtrodden masses. Those of old money in the book have two fixations in common, power and wealth. Gatsby, the man the story revolves

    Read More

  • The Evolution of the American Dream

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Money is the root of all evil”(Levit). Man and his love of money has destroyed lives since the beginning of time. Men have fought in wars over money, given up family relationships for money and done things they would have never thought that they would be capable of doing because of money. In the movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the author demonstrates how the love and worship of money and all of the trappings that come with it can destroy lives. In the novel Jay Gatsby has lavish parties, wears expensive gaudy clothes, drives fancy cars and tries to show his former love how important and wealthy he has become. He believes a lie, that by achieving the status that most Americans, in th...

    Read More

  • Essay On The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream very elaborately and shows the idea of the American dream to be connected with the goal of achieving wealth. Fitzgerald does not praise wealth in the Great Gatsby but condemns it by drawing attention to the dreadful fall made by Gatsby. Fitzgerald finds the desire of wealth to be a corrupting impact on people. Throughout the novel, the characters with money contradict the idea of the American dream. They are portrayed to be very snobbish and unhappy people.

    Read More

  • Why Do We Need Money In The Great Gatsby

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    They are lower class due to the small amounts of money they have. She is someone who can never get what she wants because her husband cannot provide for her. She is also the mistress of Tom Buchanan, a very wealthy man from East Egg. The fact that she is having an affair with someone of a higher class, someone who has money, makes Myrtle someone who is very dishonest towards her husband. This affects George’s behaviour extremely because when he finds out he becomes mentally ill. He realizes that he is married to someone who has no respect for him because he cannot provide for her. Myrtle even mentions to her sister that she regrets marrying George. She says, “‘ I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,’she said finally. ‘ I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe’” (39). This clearly proves that she was not meant for him and she married him because he was nice, not because she loved him. She thought the best for her was to cheat on her husband with someone who has money, so she can get whatever she

    Read More

  • What Is Jay Gatsby Moral

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gatsby’s American Dream was quite different, the false front that Gatsby had was that he was born into riches; the “riches” that he obtain was however through illegal acts of trafficking alcohol. Gatsby succeeds in attaining great wealth (part of the "Dream") but he becomes a corrupted figure morally. Gatsby’s moral character is corrupted by the false prosperity that he believes he has with Daisy; nonetheless, the corrupt dream of wealth is the drive that produced the incorruptible love for Daisy. Thus, Jay’s false identity that he has made with the tremendous wealth that he has gained makes him a character that is morally indignant from the rest of the characters. However, Gatsby’s personality and ego is also because of his true meager life that was the fault the economy during Gatsby's

    Read More

More about Essay About Money In The Great Gatsby

Open Document