Materialism Great Gatsby

Wealth is seen as the amount of success a person obtains, as the amount of happiness a person enjoys, and as the amount of power a person controls over others. Many start to live in an illusion, that their life is tranquilized and perfect to hide the reality of all their dirty secrets. In The Great Gatsby, by Scott F. Fitzgerald, he describes a unique story of character development to display the difference of between classes of the social system in the 1920’s in America. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald demonstrates how money and materialism deceives people’s perspective of their illusion being the reality of their lives to display the emptiness of achieving the American Dream.
Characters with a higher wealth status, such as Tom and Daisy,
One example occurs in the beginning of the book when Tom and Myrtle throw a party, and Catherine, Myrtle’s sister says, “‘You see, it’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart.’”(38). Myrtle’s dream is to achieve Tom’s status and to do that she has an affair with Tom to show others her progress towards her dream hallucinating about Daisy’s nonexistence, allowing her to feel accomplished. Myrtle’s material and money minded perceptions puts all her effort in achieving her American Dream and doesn’t look back to see the value of the materials and money because she assumes Tom will lead her to happiness, making her intentions to achieve her dream unreasonable and difficult. Therefore when she dies, Fitzgerald portrays the harshness of the American Dream for those who attempt cannot reach it because it is all money-orientated not keeping in mind their own authentic goals for the future and life. Another example, he states, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it,” he speaks admiringly of Gatsby’s pursuit for money, “He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (149). Gatsby, being persistent and determined kept trying to achieve his dream of wealth and didn’t care to think back on he is gaining his wealth because of his desperate behavior, hoping that money will solve all his problems. However, when he dies, it shows the world that all his efforts went down the drain because of how he only focused on money and didn’t keep an open mind towards others and other things when trying at his American Dream, showing how even those who tried are still were corrupted through money and materials that they assumed led them to joy and success. Myrtle and Gatsby