The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: Importance of money in the great gatsby

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, money is a major factor in all the character's lives. Especially to Jay Gatsby as he constantly relies on it. In this fiction, money cannot buy everything is supported by Gatsby's failed attempt to win over Daisy's love, his lack of true friends, and his constant feeling of emptiness.
An example proving money cannot buy everything is Gatsby’s inability to buy Daisy back. "He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes" (91). Gatsby did everything he could think of to impress Daisy however all these attempts involved showing off his wealth. “‘He wants her to see his house'" (79). Gatsby thought that once Daisy had seen all his grand belongings and his extreme wealth she would automatically start loving him again. However, even after she had seen the many wonders of Jay's home, Daisy would not admit that she had never loved Tom. Still, Gatsby’s constant solution was to use his money to convince Daisy to forget her life, disown her child and fall back into his arms again. Time after time, this method is proven to be unsuccessful. Money could not buy Daisy’s change of mind or buy back her previous love for Gatsby. These continuous failed attempts prove that money cannot by everything, including a lost love.
Not only does Gatsby's inability to make Daisy love him proves that money cannot buy everything, but this idea is also supported through his lack of true friends. “There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (39). All of these people seem li...

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...ders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through” (91). Even inside Gatsby’s house there was a feel on desolation. Each worldly thing that he owned physically represented his eternal emptiness. Gatsby kept bringing money, people and objects to his life as a goal to fill himself with satisfaction. However, money could not buy his fulfillment; leaving Gatsby with his constant emptiness, supporting that money cannot buy everything.
In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby proves that money cannot buy everything through his attempts to pursue Daisy, his lack of true friends and his constant feeling of emptiness. He constantly relies on his wealth to solve his problems. Unlike the reader, Gatsby never gets to learn the lesson of not being able to buy his way out of all his problems.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.

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