The Role Of Old Money In The Great Gatsby

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In the novel The Great Gatsby, author Scott F. Fitzgerald creates conflict between Old Money and New Money and the role of Gatsby’s romantic vision and materialism found in that conflict. The author masterfully develops the conflicts between Old Money and New Money and the role of Gatsby’s romantic vision and materialism found in the conflict throughout the fifth through seventh chapters, which allow the author to deepen Gatsby’s attraction toward Daisy and the conflicts created because of it. Fitzgerald relies on the use of multiple themes, and literary devices, including metaphor, parallelism, irony, plot and, tone.
Throughout chapters five through seven, Fitzgerald begins to develop the conflict created by Old and New money and the role …show more content…

Daisy states as a fact, “We haven't met for many years”, said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could be. “Five years next November.” “The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.” (Fitzgerald, 87). Daisy’s general statement that the two have been apart for some time is used to show Gatsby’s strong passion and attraction for her, shown by his quick and precise response. The fact that Gatsby was able to share the information regarding the years, and months that have passed since the last time the two had been together shows the intense complexity of his romantic vision. Gatsby from New money, a self made man and Daisy of Old money, there will be undeniable conflict between the two, especially in …show more content…

Fitzgerald uses literary devices including metaphor and irony. In the sixth chapter Nick is describing what he's learned about Gatsby when he states, “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby's romantic vision started with himself, when he was seventeen years old, he created the type of person he or any seventeen year old boy would want to be. Nick describes him as a son of God, this is a metaphor, that compares Gatsby as both a son, and a father. This is because Gatsby worships himself, he sees himself as a God who created James Gatsby. He was able to imagine the type of life he wanted to have, that's the kind of person he was, he was not

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