The Power Of Money In The Great Gatsby

There is a famous saying that “money is the root of all evil,” however in the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, money is the root of all society. A Marxist analysis of The Great Gatsby reveals that society built their very foundation upon money. The power of wealth in the world of Gatsby is evident in the novel’s relationships, materialistic lifestyles, and the representation of the American Dream.

The novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, is surrounded by wealthy people in the novel. He is scornful towards the wealthy, yet “only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby who represented everything for which I have unaffected scorn” (Fitzgerald 6). Daisy Buchanan’s relationships with both Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan are perhaps the most representative of the power and effects of wealth in the novel: “her whole careless world revolves around this illusion: that money makes everything beautiful, even if it is not” (“The Great Gatsby”, Novels for Students).

“Gatsby buys a mansion across the bay and gives extravagant parties in the hopes that Daisy will come to one” (“The Great Gatsby”, Novels for Students). His parties were representative of “the staid nobility of the countryside-East Egg condescending to West Egg” and the power that wealth had in the distinction between lifestyles in either parts of the cities (Fitzgerald 49). Not only did Gatsby attempt to impress Daisy through his parties, but also he appealed to her materialistic lifestyle and ideals in showing her his house (95). “He revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes”