Role Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

Materialism and its offshoots have haunted human society since the appearance of luxury. The desire to continuously attain things better than one’s own is a feeling unlike any other. When it is present, sorrow replaces hope, sadness replaces happiness, and greed replaces fulfillment. Essentially, materialism is the manifestation of every negative trait found in man. It brings out the worst in us, while hiding the best in a cloak of sudden disappointment. We are aware that it is neither sustainable nor ethically in-tact with the discernments of most people, yet we continue to let it devolve our society into something less than it actually is. Slowly, as materialism grows like a viral infection, society, along with individual humanity, becomes

The characters, the plot, and the setting all revolve around presenting the implications of a materialistic life, and to which end it will take us. The title character, though not the narrator, Jay Gatsby, is a bootlegger, whose main motivation in life is to gain the love of his previous partner, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is unique in that, though he is charming and gentleman-like, he is the representation of materialism. He truly believes that he can achieve happiness and validate his existence through Daisy Buchanan. From this viewpoint, it is clear that the central focus on the novel, though seemingly scattered in several places, is based around observing the materialistic tendencies of man, and the ends to which it will take us. The ending of The Great Gatsby is perhaps one of the saddest in classic literature. It presents the void that a lifetime of simple desire and unfulfillment creates, and, in turn, shows the hopelessness and emptiness that materialism brings, no matter the achievements. Perhaps, someday, we’ll realize that the happiness provided to us by continuous fulfillment of desire but an illusion. However, until then, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald, The Great