The Hollowness Of The Rich In The Great Gatsby

Throughout the classic The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich and the poor are constantly juxtaposed against each other. The rich as ployed as being colorful and full of detail, while the poor is described as being "ashes" in a "desolate" landscape. This juxtaposition of the rich and poor makes it clear to the reader that Fitzgerald wanted the distinction to be blunt. Fitzgerald adds this distinction because he wants the reader to understand that the rich and the poor lead completely different lives. The rich are described in elaborate colors and detail because the they live lavish lifestyles. The rich own extravagant mansions, expensive cars and hydroplanes, and lead exciting lifestyles. On the contrary, the poor are described in

Shallowness and hollowness of the upper class is shown in The Great Gatsby by Daisy’s love and addiction for wealth and money. Many people may look at Daisy and call her a ‘fool’ for her addiction to money. Eventually this not only corrupts her in the murder of Myrtle; however, her shallowness leads to the death of Jay Gatsby because of the carelessness of Daisy; which allowed Gatsby to take the blame of the death of Myrtle. Daisy represents the carelessness of most women in the Upper Class for her addiction to wealth and status. Daisy is characterized as ‘the smell of money’; therefore, it is obvious that Daisy loves Tom for his money rather than his personality. “ I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” (Fitzgerald, p23). This quote exemplifies the shallowness and hollowness of the woman in the novel. Daisy describes her daughter to Nick and Jordan as a girl who will be like her because she is in love and is manipulated into love with the idea of money. “They’re such beautiful shirts’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald, p 89). This quotes further more proves the shallowness and hollowness of Daisy because she is in love with the belongings of Jay Gatsby rather than his actual personality. Daisy obviously values the

​Nick Caraway moves from Minnesota to the West Egg neighborhood on Long Island to pursue a career in the bond industry. He lives in a tiny house wedged between large, expansive mansions. His neighbor, Jay Gatsby, is a well todo man with a mysterious past. Everyone in town knows Mr. Gatsby for his huge wild parties, but no one is quite sure where he has acquired his wealth. Across from Gatsby’s mansion, Nick’s cousin Daisy lives with her husband Tom Buchanan. Daisy and Tom have a complex relationship where neither of them are happy, but they will not separate even though both have been unfaithful. Tom has a mistress in the city whom is not unbeknownst to Daisy. Gatsby and Daisy have a romantic history from when Gatsby was in the army. This is the motivation behind Gatsby’s desire to acquire all his wealth. Gatsby throws his parties in an attempt to get Daisy’s attention, but Daisy is completely unaware that he is her neighbor until Nick brings them together. Though Nick is not a considerably wealthy man himself, his relationship to the Buchanans, and now Gatsby, are enough to keep him relevant in the social circles of East Egg and West Egg. Nick’s connection to Daisy also makes him highly attractive to Gatsby as all he wants is some form of an interaction with Daisy and involving himself with Nick is an easy way for Gatsby to make his way into Daisy’s life again. Money is power in the Great Gatsby, as it influences everyone’s status, aspirations,

Wealth is the average picture of the good life. Many in this world stride to become wealthy and live a luxurious life. Being wealthy determines a certain lifestyle considering the way you live and even where you live. If you were to look up wealth in a dictionary it would say wealth is an abundance of money. Gatsby the main character of the book The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald just so happens to be living the wealthy lifestyle. In the book it shows many different types of lifestyles during this era. Another character that goes by the name Tom Buchanon lives on a large property. They describe his home as “more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion…” (Fitzgerald 6). Which at this time is rare to own. His house is large and elegant he had a large inheritance of money that he used for the “look” of his family. Then to see the other side of the world there was a place called the “valley of ashes” that has no wealth at all this is where Wilson and Myrtle lived. It was explained as “....a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys….” (Fitzgerald 23). This is how Fitzgerald describes the poor side of town. The valley of ashes is the dirty and poor industrial zone back then. There were many ties between the different groups back then of West Egg and East Egg.

One of the most prominent themes or messages in the book The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald has to do with the meaningless aspiration for the superlative social class and wealth. This heavy theme is displayed by three ideas including, behavior of entitlement, tangible wealth, and the thirst for acceptance among the prominent.

While wealth can be quite alluring, the power associated with it can also shape one's opinions, morals, and overall humanity. Wealth is a significant factor in determining one's position in society, thus the eagerness to obtain more is correlated with the wish to hold a higher status. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, relates to this pursuit of riches and the social hierarchy attached to it. The story takes place during the height of the roaring 1920’s in New York City. Each character represents an economic sphere and has their own ambition for wealth; however, these characters, whether they fail or succeed, lose their humanity in the process. Fitzgerald utilizes the characters Gatsby, Myrtle, and Daisy to demonstrate that the desire for wealth leads to a process of dehumanization, in which morals and identity are displaced.

The 1920’s was an interesting time where social and political ideas were changing; women gained the right to vote, the jazz age created a large popularity in music and dancing, but most importantly, wealth became a new way to express one’s class in a society as people moved from rural areas to cities. The Great Gatsby is a significant example that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in order to show how one’s wealth can affect the people they meet and the way people treat each other. Along with wealth, this book is about love, both from the past and from the present, that soon twists into a tragedy when Gatsby was killed while protecting the other, all in the name of love. Everything Gatsby did was to impress or protect Daisy because he was deeply

“Money can’t buy me love” (McCartney). This quote and many like it continually tell people that money is never the end to all means. With more and more power and knowledge coming to the poor, and the rich being allowed to have divergent thinking this ideology has grown. It has grown to the point where some may say that money and wealth are a detriment to happiness. This is seen with how the rich are often portrayed as people obsessed with trivial matters, and have no real meaning to their life. This can be seen in The Great Gatsby as well. Tom and Daisy, as the only main characters who were always from high wealth show this the most. Tom is an idiot, a jock “who [reached] such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything after

Jay Gatsby is well known for being wealthy, mysterious, and for his extravagant parties. Nobody truly knew his past excluding Nick, Daisy, Tom, and his parents so there would be many speculations about him going around. In reality, Gatsby was not rich since he was born, he did not inherit the money that he had, but he earned it by bootlegging and doing other crimes. His sudden ambition towards becoming wealthy was because of Daisy. He changed all his values and lifestyle to fit into Daisy’s life.

After going through the “Great War,” also known as World War I, soldiers came back home in the middle of prohibition, a time where the almost all recreational alcohol was illegal. Despite the government's intentions to protect the people from alcohol abuse, prohibition forced people to find unorthodox ways of attaining alcohol. Prohibition unofficially made people rich because so people made lots and lots of money making and selling alcohol illegally–bootlegging. This is the setting for the famous novel, The Great Gatsby. In this book, F. Scott Fitzgerald exemplifies the true corrupting nature of wealth and shows just how powerful the desire for money can be through the corruption of the American dream, Gatsby’s dream, and the main characters.

"Greed, as distinguished from honest reward for labor, leads to corruption. To fatten oneself on it is to be compromised."(Lathbury 64). Several characters in The Great Gatsby struggle with their obsessions with wealth. Their lives depend upon their money and what it can do for them. These obsessions lead to greed, and to the corruption of relationships and lives. In F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the obsession with wealth leads to issues for many characters.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the finest American authors of the twentieth century wrote The Great Gatsby during the Jazz Age to critique the distortion of the American dream, and his work has lasted long past his lifetime. Fitzgerald discusses the nature of love and wealth and stresses the importance of defining a person beyond their external position. In his novel, letter to his daughter, and the screenplay adapted from the novel, it is clear that F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes exposition, narration, and imagery to illustrate how people in the 1920s did not understand the meaning of true love and worried about superficial characteristics, thus resulting in the corruption of the American dream from the pursuit of true love and equality to the pursuit of wealth and discrimination; however, he moralizes that human beings are capable of emotional growth and of escaping the illusion of wealth.

In the award winning book, The Great Gatsby, some of the characters are unsatisfied with their lives, whether they were rich or poor, employed or jobless, had a good reputation, or bad, their families, and even their personal histories. Those who have read the excellently written book, most of the characters are pretty wealthy. People tend to think that happiness if having what they want physically, like goods and money. But even the wealthiest people tend to be depressed or unhappy with the life they have. Characters in that category include Mr. Wilson, Daisy, and Mr. Gatsby himself. Happiness isn’t acquired by wealth, it’s acquired by love and being able to be content and stable with their daily lives.

The Roaring Twenties, or the Jazz Age, was a period characterized by post-war euphoria, prosperity, profligacy, and cultural dynamism. There were significant changes in lifestyle and culture in the 1920s; many found opportunities to rise to affluence, which resulted in groups of newly rich people, such as the hero of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby. Set in this booming era, the novel portrays the lavish and reckless lifestyle of the wealthy and elite. With the aristocratic upper class in the East Egg and the nouveau riche in the West Egg, people are divided into distinct social classes. Contrasting the two groups’ conflicting values, Fitzgerald reveals the ugliness and moral decay beneath

The 1920’s were roaring. Throughout this time period, wealth in the United States doubled, leaving room for growth in an economic forum. This caused many Americans to move into the uncharted territory of the city, and make the transition into a prosperous and foreign “consumer society” (History.com). In addition, the traits of greed and materialism are ubiquitous in The Great Gatsby, as well as in the flashy 1920’s. These two characteristics give one confidence, but as demonstrated in the novel, it brings nothing but short-term satisfaction. After that, feelings of desperation to childish behaviors can accompany it. These two features have the power to seem favorable, as they serve as a temporary distraction, bringing an