Role Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

Since the dawn of time it has been the dream of every American to go from not very wealthy to extremely wealthy, and give their kids a better life than they had. The Great Gatsby which was written by F.Scott Fitzgerald was based around this. Ever since the nation was founded in 1776, through the present millions of Americans have taken the step of trying to achieve this dream. The term American dream was first coined during the Great Depression and James Adams described it as “That dream of a land where life is fuller should be richer and fuller for everyone(Leonhardt).” Even though The Great Gatsby was written in the 1920’s, people find the American dream hard to accomplish because of all of the greed and materialism which is still true in

For the most part, this perception of success and strive towards materialism is often wrong because having all of these things does not necessarily make people feel what is truly important, happiness. Most Americans do not realize this problem, so they believe that having material possessions is the key to happiness which most of the time leads them in the wrong direction. These misperceptions of the American dream are played out in the novel The Great Gatsby, where Gatsby first meets this girl that he finds really attractive, but then she leaves him to marry a man with enormous amount of wealth. “Vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby with nothing,” (Fitzgerald 158). Daisy is a woman who is really only attractive to wealth, and lots of it, so the only way gatsby could get her back was to impress her with a bunch of extremely expensive possessions. And for about the next 5 or 6 years since Daisy left Gatsby, Gatsby had been accumulating a vast amount of wealth, buying a huge house and numerous expensive and luxurious cars, all just to impress a woman he had met years ago. After Gatsby accomplished his goal of achieving the American dream, he threw party almost every weekend where the only goal was to impress Daisy with all of his new

In 2016, “3.5 million Americans were able to raise their chins above the poverty line last year (Cohen).” This fact demonstrates how people are trying to make better lives for themselves and their families. People are not just sitting around waiting for some good luck, they are going out and making something for themselves. Just like the new rich who built their wealth, as shown in characters like Gatsby. Another positive sign for the future is people today are making more than people made thirty years ago specifically college students, “Notably in 2016, most college graduates still earn more than their parents did, including student debt (Cohen).” This means people are making more money so they can make the American dream for themselves, because by making more money they can become like the new rich in the novel and not have to rely on the wealth that ran in the family. Another great thing about going to college is that the students are going to be making more money than their parents did, so they can use that money to send their kids to college, who will hopefully make more money than