Nick's Use Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

When America exploded into the modern age post-World War I, it did so with tumultuous change in every aspect of society. An economic boom guaranteed rapid industrialization, increasing the standard of living and providing many Americans with leisure time to waste. Subsequently, America became a highly materialistic country, hiding its growing political and social unrest under a dizzying facade of wealth and escapism. This serves as the backdrop for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Modernist novel, The Great Gatsby, where he uses characterization, reoccurring motifs, and cultural symbolism to critique the superficiality of a society full of misplaced values and people wrought with a desire to find purpose.

As a reflection of the society Fitzgerald sees,

all of The Great Gatsby's major characters possess a carefully crafted public image that covers their honest thoughts. Throughout the novel, all the characters Nick associates with showcase dissatisfaction with their lives, the most prominent being socialite Daisy Buchanan. From the moment readers see her bathed in white and speaking with a hypnotizing voice described as "an arrangement of notes that will never be played again," a "singing compulsion" that promises good things, Daisy Buchanan is established as an ethereal, pure character. Her face is noticeably sad, but nonetheless lovely. As a wealthy woman, she is expected to marry within her social class and live quietly, raising children with her husband. As a result, Daisy has become jaded and pessimistic. Nicks hear about the story of her daughter's birth, where Daisy woke up alone and wept upon hearing the news she had a girl, saying: "'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'" Later, she reveals her lack of purpose plainly: “'What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,' cried Daisy, 'and the day after that, and the next thirty years?'” Despite her blatant unhappiness, Daisy never changes her situation. She breaks down before her wedding to Tom, but marries him anyway; threatens to leave him for Gatsby, but ultimately returns to normalcy with her husband. In the end, she chooses her social status over the chance for real happiness she seems to have longed for, demonstrating how people continue to value wealth even after realizing it will not give them purpose (Fitzgerald).
Nick, the narrator, makes his distaste for the lifestyle of the upper class known.

Despite living among self-made aristocrats himself, he separates himself from both the new money of West Egg and the old money of East Egg, viewing both from an outside perspective. This self-isolation allows him and the reader to view other characters as the story unfolds and pass judgement, a motif in the story. Nick claims to be "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known," and "...inclined to reserve all judgements," but regularly comments on the moral corruption of the people around him, or their perceived flaws. By the end, he says that Gatsby was worth more than the whole "rotten bunch," casting doubt on his supposed reservation of judgement. As a character, Nick's personal feelings interfere with his narration. However, Nick is not the only one watching others: the billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg stares down over the Valley of the Ashes, symbolizing divine judgement. Despite the billboard's inability to directly communicate with the characters, they react after looking at it. Its large, staring blue eyes possess "no face" and a "nonexistent nose," yet the billboard is capable of "exchanging a frown" with Tom Buchanan as he gazes upon the poor neighborhood with disapproval. Driving through, Nick feels as though the unsettling eyes are warning him of something. Indeed, George Wilson, the husband of Tom's mistress, discovers the affair she has been having and proceeds to lock her inside so she cannot leave. Desperate to escape her husband, Myrtle is killed by Daisy in a car she believed to be driven by Tom. Grief-stricken, Wilson attributes this capacity for divine judgement directly to Eckleberg: "'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me but you can't fool God!'" Aware of the need for guidance in his life, George Wilson projects his desires onto the billboard. Believing Myrtle's killer should be judged and punished, Wilson

takes it upon himself and commits murder-suicide with Gatsby as the victim. It is the characters themselves who give T.J. Eckleberg his real power by allowing his perceived judgement to influence them (Fitzgerald).
Dr. T.J. Eckleberg's billboard is not the only object that the cast of The Great Gatsby gives inordinate meaning. To reunite with his past lover, Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby throws extravagant parties in hopes of bringing her to him. The parties in the novel show the life people were leading: shallow, desperate, and empty. They are full of uninvited guests with nowhere else to go who are looking for meaning in their lives. Partygoers from varying social classes make use of Gatsby's possessions, drink his alcohol, and act "according to the ruled of behavior associated with amusement parks." Alcohol and wealth could do nothing but allow the partygoers to believe, for a time, they had become part of something great before facing the displacing reality before them. Despite taking advantage of Gatsby, none of them show more than a superficial curiosity for their host. Nick realizes that "...no one swooned backward on Gatsby and no French bob touched Gatsby's shoulder and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby's head for one link." To his guests, Gatsby is worth nothing more than his parties and the opportunity for false meaning and escape they offer. Nick finds the party distasteful until he begins drinking, then commenting, "the scene had changed before [his] eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound," suggesting the party's meaning is fraudulent. As the night goes on, the facade begins slipping away once more. Couples begin fighting as the husbands show more interest in other women than their wives, a situation not unlike that of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Even with these similarities, Daisy loathes the party when she finally attends, "appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented 'place' that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island firing village--appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing." The parties and alcohol are merely symbols representing their desired escape. Daisy is unused to these overt expressions of dissatisfaction, growing up among the established wealthy, but she recognizes that the society of West Egg will not find genuine purpose by partying or drinking, the "short-cut from nothing to nothing" (Fitzgerald).
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald wants to provide a critique on humanity and its tendency to look for meaning in the wrong places. By using characterization, reoccurring motifs, and cultural symbolism, Fitzgerald tells the story of lost people on the path to self-destruction. The emptiness and lack of direction in life experienced by those living in the twenties is the same that readers face today.