Examples Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

Gatsby’s materialism took over his life, and it became all he was known for, even when he died. Materialism is preoccupation with or emphasis on material objects, comforts, and considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values (dictionary.com). People who are too obsessed with material things end up missing out on many things in life and will always be missing something, and try to fill the void with money. This is what happens to Gatsby and many other characters in The Great Gatsby. There are many examples of the character’s concern for gaining and showing off their wealth.
Part of the appeal of being rich is the fantasy of it, once you finally get the money, you lose the fantasy of it and it

becomes a lot less appealing. When Gatsby was younger he was poor and lived a relatively normal life. As he got older, he became more and more wealthy, and his main focus was accumulating more money. When he became rich, the whole idea of having lots of money became much less exciting. He was fine with just spending lots of it, and wasting it all the time.
Gatsby threw parties very often. They were expensive and many people came to them. He wasted a lot of his money on his parties, without a second thought. He only had the parties to show off his wealth to the world. Most of the people who came to the parties had never even met Gatsby, they all knew nothing about him besides how wealthy he was. Also, the only thing they had ever seen of Gatsby were all of his belongings.
The way Gatsby’s parties were set up make it seem like he only thought of his belongings as important. He had no interest in showing people anything about him besides material items. He might’ve not thought his ideas were important enough to share with his guests, because he didn’t have conversations with any of them. Furthermore, most of his guests had never seen Gatsby let alone talk to him. Also, the the only part of Gatsby that the guests cared about was his money and how he got all of it.
His house is an example of how materialistic he was. He was only one person, yet he lived in a flashy mansion. He also had bookshelves full of books that had never even been read. Most of the things he owned were just for show and had no real purpose to Gatsby. He just wanted to draw attention to his wealth, even though everyone already knew. His house was one big show, so when people would come to his parties, they would be impressed. Gatsby wasted a lot of money on showing other people how much money he had. It doesn’t fully make sense why it matters if random people are impressed by his money, the only thing Gatsby gains from it is satisfaction.
Gatsby and many other characters had a big interest in their cars.

Their cars were a type of status symbol. Just like Gatsby’s house was just show off his wealth, his cars served the same purpose. There was no need for a more expensive car and no practical reasons. Tom is another example of using a car as a status symbol. Tom drives a blue coupe, which seems like a fancy and flashy car. Another man, Wilson wants to buy his car, because he knows he can make money off of it. Cars were quite a big deal in those days, because they were just becoming something that most people owned. A lot of the innovations in cars that we think of as being modern were introduced in the 1920's. Some things that were introduced were, like electric powered cars, four wheel drive, front wheel drive, and even hybrid fuel/electric cars (http://www.1920-30.com/automobiles/). If a lot of people had cars, then the ultrarich would want to buy extra fancy cars to make sure people knew that they had plenty of money, just like the rich showed off other fancy things that they

had.
This book shows that a person's wealthiness was the same as their value as a person. It seems that their money was the only thing they had to offer. People would mostly only associate with people who had as much, or more money than they had. It is interesting that Gatsby wanted to become friends with Nick, because Nick was much poorer than him. Gatsby came from a less wealthy background so he understands Nick's situation, even though Nick isn’t super poor.
Gatsby is also sure that if he acquires more wealth, he will have a greater chance to win over Daisy. He thinks that somehow his money will translate into love from Daisy, which isn’t how it is supposed to work. You can’t make someone love you by being rich, it might impress them at first, but it cannot create love and the feeling will fade fast. He didn’t try to even talk to her again for many years, and instead just accumulated wealth.
The reason that he left her in the first place was because he thought he was to poor for her. He should’ve realized that if they really loved each other, the money wouldn’t matter. Because of how much he cared about his money, he let the love of his life get away and marry another man. He throws extravagant and expensive parties, that he doesn’t even enjoy, just to impress people, especially Daisy. When he eventually does see Daisy, she is very impressed by all his money. This shows how materialistic she was too. She admired his nice shirts, cars and general wealth, but in the end none of that mattered, because she still stayed with Tom.
The women in this book are viewed as possessions, which also shows the theme of materialism.

In the 1920s, women had very few rights and the men were mostly in charge. On August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, which allowed women to vote (archives.gov). Even though they were able to, many women didn’t want to vote, because they didn’t think it was their role, only the men's role. Women's attitude towards voting shows the outlook of almost everyone on women, in the 1920s. Furthermore, In the United States in the 1920s, only about 15 percent of white and 30 percent of black married women with wage-earning husbands held paying jobs (ncpedia.org/). They thought of them as men's belongings, whose only job was to cook, clean and care for the children. Almost all of the men in the book had mistresses, who were treated pretty badly. The men didn’t care for them too much, and Tom's mistress, Myrtle was even killed. Myrtles pursuit for wealth led to her death. She only became Tom’s mistress because he was rich and she thought his money could improve the quality of her life, it obviously did not end up doing that

though.
In the end Gatsby’s money hurt him more than it helped him. He was as rich as can be and still ended up unhappy. Some people would say that one of the points of life is to be happy, Gatsby never really achieved that, he only gained material things during his lifetime. At the end of his life, his money did nothing for him, he still died, and didn’t even die happy or fulfilled. The only thing he offered to the world was his money, which didn’t help anyone anymore once he died. His only legacy was his money and nobody was interested in it as soon as he was gone.
When Gatsby died, nobody seemed to care very much. All the people who knew him were fine just moving onto the next big party. Most people weren’t interested in him as anything other than a rich party-thrower. They liked him while it benefited them, but once the parties stopped they were all done with him. Only the couple people who really cared about him as a person came to him funeral. It makes it pretty obvious that nobody really was concerned about what happened to him, when Nick tried to call people and invite them the funeral, and nobody is interested at all.
There are many examples of how money does more harm than good in The Great Gatsby. By the end of the book, many people have wanted money and gotten it, and all it did was hurt them. People were in bad relationships, unhappy and even dead. Back then and even nowadays, people need to realize that they will gain very little from the pursuit of money, and that it isn’t the only thing you need in life.