Who Is The Rich In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald follows the story of a group of the most affluent socialites of the East Coast, written from the perspective of the newly moved Nick Carraway. As Nick has just moved away from his upper class family in the Midwest to make his own fortune in the New York stock market, he finds himself to be the neighbor of the richest, most luxurious man on the island of West Egg: Jay S. Gatsby, who, at his incredible mansion, is credited with throwing the most extravagant parties his guests have ever seen. Across the bay from Nick and Gatsby sits the more fashionable East Egg, home to Nick’s distant cousin Daisy and her adulterous husband Tom Buchanan, both of whom come from quite privileged Old Money backgrounds.
Before Gatsby was the extravagant man in the lavish Long Island mansion, he was James Gatz, a lower class, Midwestern farm boy. At the age of 17 Gatz decided he wanted to become rich, made a plan for himself, and fixated on making himself larger than life. He was insistent on becoming a perfect version of himself, or the “Platonic conception”(98), and was willing to do anything to achieve this. Gatsby’s obsession to become a rich and affluent man then transformed into an obsession with winning over Daisy, the beautiful young woman of Old Money. When Gatsby first meets Daisy, he is enchanted by her elegance and her beautiful house, and “It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes”(149). To Gatsby, Daisy is just another part of his fantasy that he is chasing. She is an “enchanted object”(93) that Gatsby gives value to like an expensive commodity everyone wants to get a piece of. Having her, would be the icing on the cake in his pursuit of becoming upper class. Her voice is “full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it.... High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl....”(120). The “king’s daughter”, the “golden girl”, both the most rare woman a man can win, and Gatsby is set on her. Daisy, becomes the embodiment of Gatsby’s platonic conception, as getting her would mean he successfully gained anything and everything there is to have. Ever since Gatsby was a boy he wanted to be a part of the fantastic Old Money society, and acquiring Daisy is his ultimate prize. So, Gatsby then did everything in his power in order to make this happen, figuring if he became mega rich he could essentially buy Daisy’s heart. He succeeds in acquiring this fortune,