Great Gatsby Materialism Research Paper

ENG 3U
Wednesday, July 11th 2012

Materialism Changed People’s Attitude

In the 20th century, after the World War I, rapid surge of industrial and technological growth swept throughout the world. At the same time, people started to build their own ideas and belief based on the materialism rather than giving higher priorities to moral and individual values. As Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby portrayed a story happening in that time period, it contains various contents about materialism. In order to display the drawbacks of materialism, the author demonstrated counter argument using a symbolism.

In the book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s car plays a very important role in showing both the wealth and the negative aspects of materialism at the
same time. The colour yellow, which is the colour of Gatsby’s car, depicts polarity the most clearly throughout the novel. Yellow symbolizes Gatsby’s wealth and how much he wanted to boost about his money that “Everybody had seen it” (Fitzgerald 63). He has been saving up for three years, and his car is one of his possessions that display his success and interest in materialism. However, not long after, his car is involved in a serious accident, which eventually kills three people: Myrtle, Gatsby himself, and Wilson. As a direct influence, the car hits Myrtle and kills her instantly, and as a consequent of that event, Wilson gets mad enough to kill Gatsby; then he kills himself. Furthermore, the colour yellow indirectly caused this event to progress due to its noticeable colour. The witnesses of Myrtle’s death easily remembered the appearance of the car allowing Wilson to easily find out where the car is located. With these series of events, the author shows the destructive effects that followed the materialism, illustrated with Gatsby’s yellow car. This event clearly showed the pathway that links between the “displayed money” and the terrible result.

Another symbolism Fitzgerald use is ‘Valley of Ashes’, a place located between West Egg and the New York City.
The author describes the place to be very deserted, destructive, and the amalgam of foulness. For example, "where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air" (Fitzgerald 26). This generates a picture of the valley with the houses that are dirty, smokes all over the place with a bad smell, and not cheerful people on the streets. Additionally just as the name represents, the valley of ashes is the images full of grey ashes. Not only the physical images are corrupted, it also demonstrates corrupted meanings as well. The colour grey that is used to describe the place shows the moral destruction of the characters in the book. The clearest one shown is Tom and Myrtle’s affair happening right beneath Wilson’s eye. The valley of ashes is also where Myrtle’s death takes place. In the book, Tom and Daisy respectively use and harm members of this class with no remorse. Even though the valley of ashes also symbolizes the poor, as it is located between places where people live fairly well, the image naturally leads to be the wrong-being of the rich, or the supporters of materialism. It is shown that the negative aspects are somewhat ignored by people in the book. It depicts the place to be “a certain desolate area of land” (Fitzgerald 23).
Like Tom and Myrtle’s affair, the faults of materialism are shown clearly and everyone knows about it. However, they tend to just ignore the fact and carry on with their lives. Overall, the valley of ashes is a place that depicts the negative sides of the materialism of the rich people of West and East eggs.

The last symbol used in the book is the Eyes of Dr.
T. J. Eckleberg, which actually is an advertisement of an ophthalmic hospital. Furthermore, through this very big advertisement that sticks out clearly so that everyone can see, the material aspects of the materialism are revealed. The description of the eyes also contains symbols that represent money. The colour of the eyes, yellow and blue, shows that the doctor cares about money and materials. However the characters in the book, especially Wilson, The Great Gatsby consider it as a divine structure such as staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland. This false belief shows how people thought that having money gives a lot of power and control over everything, including their lives. One other important thing about the Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg is located in the valley of ashes. Since the valley of ashes represents a corruption of materialists, the eyes naturally become a part of that corruption. The fact that the advertisement is considered as a god in the novel, the author tries to show that people become blind to the negative aspects of the money, even when it is obviously
shown.

Overall in The Great Gatsby, the author Fitzgerald criticizes rich people’s wrong belief of materialism by using the symbolism through Gatsby’s car, Valley of Ashes, and the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg. The Gatsby 's car display wealth, but it shows how the result of having one could be unpleasant. Moreover, the valley of ashes represents people like George Wilson, who want to obtain materials and be rich or people already have failed to be rich and be stuck in the place where it is corrupted. Lastly, Dr. T. J. Eckleberg watches over the people who are going through a tough time to possess the materials. Even though it is true that money is one of the most important parts of the world, it can always bring people depressing endings if they overly believe in it.

Work Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin Books, 1926