Money, a Privilege or a Curse? : Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, money plays a large role in the character’s lives. Money is used to change their appearances throughout the novel. All the characters use their money in a different way. Gatsby attempts to use his money to win back his one true love, Daisy. Myrtle Wilson uses money she does not have to change her appearance towards others. But others are used to having wealth, and they are experienced in the ways of being rich. These people include Tom and Daisy Buchanan. The narrator, Nick Caraway, moves east searching for wealth, but never achieves that goal. The entire novel is filled with wealth and riches, but is money to be seen as a privilege or a curse? Characters in The Great Gatsby try to recreate themselves using money. Many characters in The Great Gatsby have money, and they all use it in different ways. Gatsby’s main goal is to win back Daisy Buchanan. He attempts this by getting wealthy so that she will fall for him again, for the sole purpose that he is rich. Myrtle Wilson tries to recreate herself by buying items to make her look wealthy. Daisy’s whole life has been a pampered one. She cannot live a life that is not filled with riches. Tom Buchanan was not born rich, but he is very used to being wealthy as well as his wife, Daisy. But Nick is not rich. He travels to the east looking for wealth, but in the end he sees that money only brings deception and destruction. Jay Gatsby is not accustomed to being a rich man because he has only been one for a very small period of time; therefore he can be seen as newly rich. Kirk Curnutt quotes Scott Donaldson about Gatsby, “His clothes, his …
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… Even though money looks like the answer to all of one’s problems, and even though it acts like the key to unlock the American Dream, Money is a trap that can lead to deception and destruction.
Works Cited
Berman, Ronald. “The Marketplace.” The Great Gatsby and Modern Times. ED. Ronald Berman. Illinois, 1996. 59-81.Curnutt, Kirk. “Upper-and Middle-Class Waste and Destruction.” Class Conflict in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby. ED. Claudia Johnson. Michigan: Farmington Hills, 2008. 53-59.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004.
Lewis, Roger. “Money, Love, and Aspiration in The Great Gatsby.” 27 october 2011. Fitzgerald.narod.ru/critics-eng/lewis-moneylove.html.
“The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby.” Inforefuge.com. 27 October 2011 www.inforefuge.com/demise-of-american-dream-the-great-gatsby
