the great gatsby motif essay

Themes and Analysis

The great gatsby, by f. scott fitzgerald.

Within ‘The Great Gatsby,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald taps into several important themes. These include the American dream, and its decline, as well as wealth, class, and love.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

‘ The Great Gatsby’ follows Nick Carraway , who meets the mysterious multimillionaire Jay Gatsby after moving to New York. He gets wrapped up in Gatsby’s dreams and his cousin’s difficult marriage, all while learning about the pitfalls of wealth and the truth of the American dream.

The Great Gatsby Themes 

Wealth .

Wealth is one of the most important themes Fitzgerald’s characters contend with within The Great Gatsby . Specifically, he draws a contrast between the aristocracy, those with old money like Daisy and Tom, and those with new money, like Gatsby. They live different lives and consider one another in different lights. But, both types of wealth corrupt in the same way. As the money amasses, their consideration of other people decreases.

Fitzgerald provides a great example of this at the end of the novel when Daisy and Tom move away to a new home rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral or deal with the consequences. Instead, they use their money to keep other people at a distance and get whatever they want out of life. 

The American Dream 

This theme is central to Gatsby’s understanding of the world and the judgments Nick makes about the future at the end of the novel. It is a set of ideas that suggest that anyone who works hard can find success in the United States. Gatsby rose from poverty up to the level of a multi-millionaire. But, when it came to what he really wanted in life, he failed. He spent his whole life thinking that if he just made enough money, he’d be able to convince Daisy to love him, and he’d have everything he wanted. But, he couldn’t retrieve his relationship with Daisy, and his pursuit of it led to his death. 

Love/ Relationships

There are a few different depictions of love and relationships in The Great Gatsby, and none of them are ideal. There is Gatsby’s unending love for Daisy, George’s love for his wife, Myrtle, Tom and Daisy’s relationship, and Nick’s relationship with Jordan. Gatsby’s goal to bring Daisy back into his life is one that’s built on an idealized image of the latter, one that fails to fulfill itself in reality.

Gatsby loves the idea of Daisy and thought of possessing her more than he does the person. The same can be said of Tom’s consideration for his wife. He wants to keep her as a commodity and as a symbol of his own status. But he doesn’t love her. He continually cheats on her and doesn’t attempt to hide it. Nick’s fleeting relationship with Jordan is emotionally distant. There isn’t enough emotion on either’s side for it to be anything other than a passing distraction. 

Analysis of Key Moments in The Great Gatsby

• Nick moves to West Egg. 
• Nick meets Gatsby and learns about his love for Daisy. 
• Nick helps reunite the two. 
• Daisy learns about Gatsby’s criminal dealings from Tom.
• Daisy returns to Tom. 
• Daisy hits Tom’s mistress Myrtle with her car. 
• Gatsby decides to say he was the one driving the car. 
• Tom tells Myrtle’s husband George that it was Gatsby’s car that hit his wife. 
• George shoots Gatsby and then shoots himself. 
• Nick attends Gatsby’s small funeral. 
• Daisy and Tom move away. 
• Nick returns to Minnesota disgusted with what he’s seen of the upper classes. 

Style, Tone and Figurative Language 

The tone throughout The Great Gatsby is in part sympathetic, scornful, and judgmental, depending on the moment. The former is the primary tone when the novel comes to a close, and Nick considers the tragedy of Gatsby’s death and what he did and didn’t accomplish. The details of Gatsby’s parties, the relationship between the men and women there, and Nick’s own cousin, Daisy, and her husband, are all addressed with a more scornful/judgemental tone. Nick is amazed by much of what he sees, but he’s also appalled by how these men and women treat one another. 

Fitzgerald’s style of writing is often wry, filled with figurative language and interesting imagery. Fitzgerald often uses long sentences, starting with one topic and ending with another. He uses sophisticated language and doesn’t back away from more lyrical passages, such as the final lines of the novel: 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

This final line is also a good example of how Fitzgerald uses figurative language. It’s an example of a metaphor comparing humankind’s desire to reach into the future and find a better life to a boat being beaten back by the current. Some of the other examples of figurative language in this novel include similes, symbolism, and personification. For example, in Chapter 2 when Fitzgerald uses the following lines: 

But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. 

This quote from The Great Gatsby is an example of personification. The eyes are described as looking down over everyone even though they’re on a sign. 

Analysis of Symbols 

The green light .

The green light is perhaps the most important symbol in The Great Gatsby. It sits at the end of Daisy’s dock, and Nick catches Gatsby staring at it towards the beginning of the novel. It represents the life Gatsby is trying to create for himself and the role Daisy plays in it. The light is guiding him into the darkness as the end of the novel reveals. 

The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes are another prominent symbol in the novel. They are a pair of eyes on a faint billboard over the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald personifies them (see above quote), turning them into God’s eyes. They watch the terrible events playing out below without intervening. They’re watching but remain empty. 

What does Jay Gatsby symbolize? 

He represents the American dream and its dissolution in the 1920s. 

What the three main themes in The Great Gatsby? 

The three main themes are the American dream, wealth, and love/relationships. 

Why did nobody go to Gatsby’s funeral? 

No one went because no one had a true connection to the man. The only people around him were those who were using him for his wealth. Once he died, he had no value to them. 

What is the main message of The Great Gatsby? 

The main message of the novel is that the American dream is a fantasy. No one can have everything. One might also consider the fact that wealth corrupts all those who obtain it as the main message. 

How did Gatsby get rich?

He got rich through illegal means, including bootlegging and other deals with organized criminals.

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About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

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'The Great Gatsby' Themes

Wealth, class, and society, love and romance, the loss of idealism, the failure of the american dream.

• M.F.A, Dramatic Writing, Arizona State University
• B.A., English Literature, Arizona State University
• B.A., Political Science, Arizona State University

The Great Gatsby , by F. Scott Fitzgerald, presents a critical portrait of the American dream through its portrayal of the 1920s New York elite. By exploring themes of wealth, class, love and idealism, The Great Gatsby raises powerful questions about American ideas and society.

The Great Gatsby 's characters represent the wealthiest members of 1920s New York society . Despite their money, however, they are not portrayed as particularly aspirational. Instead, the rich characters' negative qualities are put on display: wastefulness, hedonism, and carelessness.

The novel also suggests that wealth is not equivalent to social class. Tom Buchanan comes from the old money elite, while Jay Gatsby is a self-made millionaire. Gatsby, self-conscious about his "new money" social status, throws unbelievably lavish parties in hopes of catching Daisy Buchanan's attention. However, at the novel's conclusion, Daisy chooses to stay with Tom despite the fact that she genuinely loves Gatsby; her reasoning is that she could not bear to lose the social status that her marriage to Tom affords her. With this conclusion, Fitzgerald suggests that wealth alone does not guarantee entrance into the upper echelons of elite society.

In The Great Gatsby , love is intrinsically tied to class. As a young military officer, Gatsby fell quickly for debutante Daisy, who promised to wait for him after the war. However, any chance at a real relationship was precluded by Gatsby's lower social status. Instead of waiting for Gatsby, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, an old-money East Coast elite. It is an unhappy marriage of convenience: Tom has affairs and seems just as romantically uninterested in Daisy as she is in him.

The idea of unhappy marriages of convenience isn’t limited to the upper class. Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson, is a spirited woman in a seriously mismatched marriage to a suspicious, dull man. The novel suggests that she married him in hopes of being upwardly mobile, but instead the marriage is simply miserable, and Myrtle herself ends up dead. Indeed, the only unhappy couple to survive "unscathed" is Daisy and Tom, who eventually decide to retreat into the cocoon of wealth despite their marital problems.

In general, the novel takes a fairly cynical view of love. Even the central romance between Daisy and Gatsby is less a true love story and more a depiction of Gatsby's obsessive desire to relive—or even redo —his own past. He loves the image of Daisy more than the woman in front of him . Romantic love is not a powerful force in the world of The Great Gatsby .

Jay Gatsby is perhaps one of the most idealistic characters in literature. Nothing can deter him from his belief in the possibility of dreams and romance. In fact, his entire pursuit of wealth and influence is carried out in hopes of making his dreams come true. However, Gatsby's single-minded pursuit of those dreams—particularly his pursuit of the idealized Daisy—is the quality that ultimately destroys him. After Gatsby's death, his funeral is attended by just three guests; the cynical "real world" moves on as though he'd never lived at all.

Nick Carraway also represents the failures of idealism through his journey from naïve Everyman observer to burgeoning cynic. At first, Nick buys into the plan reunite Daisy and Gatsby, as he believes in the power of love to conquer class differences. The more involved he becomes in the social world of Gatsby and the Buchanans, however, the more his idealism falters. He begins to see the elite social circle as careless and hurtful. By the end of the novel, when he finds out the role Tom cheerfully played in Gatsby’s death, he loses any remaining trace of idealization of elite society.

The American dream posits that anyone, no matter their origins, can work hard and achieve upward mobility in the United States. The Great Gatsby questions this idea through the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby. From the outside, Gatsby appears to be proof of the American dream: he is a man of humble origins who accumulated vast wealth. However, Gatsby is miserable. His life is devoid of meaningful connection. And because of his humble background, he remains an outsider in the eyes of elite society. Monetary gain is possible, Fitzgerald suggests, but class mobility is not so simple, and wealth accumulation does not guarantee a good life.

Fitzgerald specifically critiques the American dream within the context of the Roaring Twenties , a time when growing affluence and changing morals led to a culture of materialism. Consequently, the characters of The Great Gatsby equate the American dream with material goods, despite the fact that the original idea did not have such an explicitly materialistic intent. The novel suggests that rampant consumerism and the desire to consume has corroded the American social landscape and corrupted one of the country's foundational ideas.

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The Extensive Guide to Analysing ‘The Great Gatsby’ for English: Summary, Context, Themes & Characters

The Great Gatsby explores themes of the American Dream, wealth, love, and disillusionment through the tragic story of Jay Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy Buchanan and their complex relationships.  Stay tuned for the full Great Gatsby summary, characters, context, themes and more!

We’ve even got a step-by-step guide on how to write Band 6 analysis for The Great Gatsby that’ll blow your teachers away! 

And here’s a bonus for you — we’ve also created an analysis table (aka a TEE table ) and a sample paragraph that’s all free for you to download.

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s start the party!

Summary of The Great Gatsby Key Characters Historical Context The Great Gatsby Themes Sample Band 6 Analysis of The Great Gatsby

Summary of The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story that revolves around Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who strives to rekindle his relationship with his old flame, Daisy Buchanan.

It takes on the narrative of Nick Carraway, who witnesses the events between Gatsby and Daisy to tell a tale about doomed love in the world of the wealthy. 

Meet Nick, Daisy, Tom and Jordan

In 1922, Nick Carraway moves to a modest home in Long Island, New York in hopes of claiming his own American Dream. He lives next to the famous Jay Gatsby, who had his own mansion and threw lavish parties every weekend. 

One day, Nick travels to the other side of Long Island to visit his cousin, Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom whom Nick had known since their university days at Yale. They introduce him to Jordan Baker , who tells Nick about Tom’s mistress.

Later on, Daisy confides in Nick about her unhappiness in her marriage. Nick returns home to see his neighbour, Jay Gatsby, in front of his mansion, stretching his hands across the bay and towards the green light at the end of the Buchanan residence. 

Image sourced from LitHub

Meet Myrtle

Nick is then invited to visit the city with Tom and his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who is married to a repairman named George and lives in an industrial wasteland nicknamed “valley of ashes”.

They party at Tom’s apartment, where an argument about Daisy breaks out between Tom and Myrtle, which ends in Tom breaking Myrtle’s nose. 

Meet Gatsby

As the summer passes by, Nick receives an invitation to one of Gatsby’s extraordinary parties. Nick attends the party and bumps into Jordan.

He then meets the Great Gatsby himself, who turns out to be a remarkable young man who looked like he was longing for something as he peers over his own party. 

As the party winds down, Gatsby speaks to Jordan privately. Jordan would later tell Nick about how Gatsby had met Daisy in Louisville back in 1917 and fell in love with her then.

Gatsby is still deeply in love with Daisy, so he hosts many extravagant parties in hopes to see her again. 

Gatsby and Daisy reunited 

As Nick and Gatsby become closer, Nick accepts Gatsby’s request to invite Daisy over to Nick’s house , with Gatsby arriving unannounced. Daisy is surprised to see Gatsby after five years apart.

Although awkward at first, Gatsby and Daisy warm up to one another, and begin a love affair. 

Tom gets suspicious 

After a while, Tom starts to suspect something fishy between his wife and Gatsby, so he invites them over for luncheon . At the table, Gatsby responds in a manner that reveals his love for Daisy, which Tom picks up.

Despite having his own affair, Tom gets extremely angry and forces the party to drive to a suit in the Plaza Hotel, New York City. 

Gatsby insists that Daisy claims her love for him in front of Tom, but she backs out after realising her devotion to Tom . Tom begins to assert his own history with Daisy over Gatsby’s and reveals his own private investigations into Gatsby’s job as an illegal alcohol dealer.

Astounded, Daisy runs away and Gatsby chases after her. Daisy and Gatsby take off in Gatsby’s car.

Image sourced from Curbed New York

Myrtle’s death

The party drives back to the buchanan residence with nick, jordan and tom in another car. as they pass through the valley of ashes, they find out that gatsby’s car had crashed and killed myrtle, tom’s mistress..

When Nick returns to Long Island, Gatsby tells him that Daisy killed Myrtle as she was driving the car and Gatsby was willing to take the fall. 

Gatsby dies 

The following day, Tom informs Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver that killed Myrtle. A miserable, grieving Tom comes to the conclusion that Gatsby was Myrtle’s secret lover and proceeds to kill Gatsby in the pool of his mansion . Tom then shoots himself. 

Nick arranges a funeral for Gatsby, which no one attends as the world starts to forget about him. Disgusted by the people in Gatsby’s life, Nick moves away from New York to escape the hollowness and moral decline of the higher class.

The novel ends with Nick standing where Gatsby once stood, peering across to watch the green light flicker at the now abandoned Buchanan residence. Although Nick acknowledges that Gatsby was “great” because of his ability to manifest his dreams into reality, he realises that both the pursuit of Gatsby’s and the American dream are, sadly but ultimately, futile. 

Access The Great Gatsby Downloadable Sample Paragraph and Examples of Essay Analysis here!

Key Characters in The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway  As Nick is the main narrator, his perceptions and judgements shape how the story is being told. As a young, bright man, Nick attended Yale and fought in World War I before moving from Minnesota to New York City to learn about the bond industry.  Soon enough, he becomes friends with his wealthy neighbour, Jay Gatsby. He also has a cousin, Daisy Buchanan, who lives across the area and happens to be Gatsby’s former lover. He plays a pivotal role in facilitating the reunion between Gatsby and Daisy.  He claims his own character to be honest, open-minded and quiet, so many trust to confide him with their secrets, no matter how scandalous it may be. 

Jay Gatsby Jay Gatsby makes the title of the book as the main protagonist — a mysterious young millionaire who hosts luxurious parties every Saturday night to impress his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.  Born as James Gatz on a humble farm in North Dakota, Gatsby’s strive for his American Dream steered him out of poverty and into the upper class world. During his days training as an officer in Louisville, he met Daisy and fell in love with her. Unfortunately, he had to leave for the army, so he swore to come back to her through acquiring as much fortune as he could. Whether it’d be selling illegal alcohol or trading stolen goods — he would do anything to become rich so he could be back with Daisy.  Although Nick sees Gatsby as a dishonest man, we have to give it to Gatsby and his extraordinary ability to transform his dreams into a reality as he reconstructs an identity for himself as the legendary “Great” Gatsby. 

Daisy Buchanan Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin and Gatsby’s love interest. As a young beautiful socialite, she attracted many men in Louisville, including Gatsby. Although she promised to wait for Gatsby, Daisy longed for love and gratification. So, when Tom (a wealthy, hunky hot mess) asked for her hand in marriage, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby and married Tom instead.  Gatsby sees Daisy as the perfect woman for him due to her charm, grace and wealth. In reality, Daisy is sardonic, superficial and cynical — representing the flaws of the aristocratic. 

Tom Buchanan Tom is Nick’s former college mate from Yale who was born into an aristocratic, wealthy family line. He is a big bully who exudes arrogance, aggression and cold-heartedness as he projects racism and sexism onto anyone he interacts with. An outright liar and hypocrite, Tom has no second thoughts about his feelings for Daisy during his extramarital affair with Myrtle, yet becomes enraged at Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. 

Jordan Baker Jordan is Nick’s love interest and Daisy’s socialite friend. As a professional golfer, Jordan naturally belongs to the upper class of society as she plays a sport exclusive to the wealthy. While Jordan is described as alluring and beautiful upon first meeting, Nick later discovers that she is quite cynical, self-centred and a liar. For example, Jordan’s success is built on lies as she cheated in her first major tournament to win.  Jordan’s sly and self-focussed nature reflects the “new women” of the Roaring Twenties, otherwise known as “flappers” who can be recognised by their bobbed hair, short skirts and makeup that is symbolic of the Jazz Age. The “new women” were open towards sexuality, digressing from the conventional domestic life alike Daisy’s, to welcome a new age of women. 

Myrtle Wilson Myrtle is Tom’s mistress and a married woman, wedded to a mechanic who owns a garage in the valley of ashes. Desperate to escape her social situation, Myrtle enters an affair with the rich Tom Buchanan, who rents an apartment where she can pretend that she belongs to the upper class world. Unfortunately, Tom treats Myrtle as an object, inflicting violence upon her whenever she tries to assert her will. 

George Wilson George Wilson is Myrtle’s exhausted husband, tirelessly working to run his auto shop in the valley of ashes. Despite Myrtle’s ferocity and snappy attitude, George worships the ground that Myrtle walks on. Soon after learning about his wife’s death, George becomes consumed by grief and commits murder to exact his revenge.  In a way, George reflects Gatsby as both were dreamers whose lives were destroyed by their unrequited love for the women who pursue people like Tom — rich, immoral and selfish. 

Context of The Great Gatsby

Coined as the Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of American fiction that is revered for its reflective take on American social classes during the Jazz era .

With its imagistic prose and rich history, it teleports us to the 1920s post war society, known as the “Roaring Twenties”.

It was a chaotic period in American history in terms of its politics, society and economy. 

To understand The Great Gatsby, it is important to know its historical roots first. Let’s dive into America’s most turbulent time of growth, prosperity and corruption. 

Warren Harding’s Presidency 

After World War I ended in 1919, Warren Harding became the President of the United States and targeted the economy to rebuild America’s morale. It was a time of scandal and corruption as the presidency sided with management in disputes over unions, minimum wage and child labour, which compromised the labourers. 

To make matters worse, Harding and his next-in-line, Calvin Coolidge established tax legislation, which benefited the rich more than the other classes. Further policies also forced people to relocate to urban areas to earn a living, as rural industries such as agriculture, textiles and mining were disadvantaged.

Despite their migration, these people were unable to achieve the better life they sought out for, striving to live in the harsh conditions like that of the valley of ashes in Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. 

Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution: Prohibition 

In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution: prohibition was approved. This meant that it was illegal to manufacture, sell or transport any type of alcohol. The Americans at that time felt that this was a moral decision, as it would remove any vices associated with drunkenness. 

Yet, things didn’t turn out as planned. Many broke the law and consumed illegal liquor, which boosted demand for illegal alcohol to the extent where organised crime activity took hold of its profitability. This new line of industry generated fortunes for the nouveau riches (newly rich) founders such as Gatsby.

Understanding this part of American law in the 1920s is very important to understand the weight of Gatsby’s crimes, and how amoral his actions were to become one of the filthy rich. 

Materialism

As the economy prospered, the people earned more money and spent more money at a rate that is higher than any other period in history. People also started to spend more time and money on leisure goods and activities, making sports an enjoyable recreational pastime. 

The Roaring 20s

The “Roaring 20s” was a retaliation against the chaos and violence of World War I which left America in a state of shock . A wild, exuberant lifestyle was what the generation needs to drown the trauma they’ve inherited from the cruel war.

The generation also turned away from the worn out conservative values of the past, charging into the wealth, opulence and extravagance that America’s economic prosperity provides them. 

Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald worked hard through writing to please his aristocratic wife, Zelda, who was everything he wanted to become, yet became everything he regarded with contempt . After cycles of endless parties all day and night, Fitzgerald became tired of his luxurious lifestyle as he found himself empty under a fake facade of wealth, longing for the return of his moral crux. 

Image sourced from History Collection

The Great Depression

In the early 1920s, wealthy Americans got even wealthier through stock dividends, corporate profits and wages. As technology and means for productivity improved, production costs reduced and the economy flourished. 

However, good things must come to an end. In 1929, the stock market crashed and flooded in a new age of financial decline known as The Great Depression.

Personal income, tax revenue and profits dropped, but the ones who were hit the hardest were the lower class. For some countries, its effects lasted until the start of World War II. 

Although Fitzgerald didn’t know this would happen, he did figure that too much of a good thing is a bad thing, hinting that the opulent Jazz Age has its own impending doom. 

Image sourced from Bushcraft Buddy

The American Dream

The American Dream is an ideal where anyone can achieve success if they work hard in a society that facilitates upward mobility, regardless of which class they are born into.

Simply put, even if you’re poor, the American Dream states that you can get real rich — if you just work real hard. 

The concept of the American Dream began from the Founding Fathers, who established independence from England and started a free America.

However, Americans in 1918 were disillusioned after experiencing the harsh brutalities of war, finding cynicism and emptiness within the Victorian social model. 

Additionally, as the stock market skyrocketed and people gained money from all avenues (legal or not), people from all backgrounds who could make themselves a fortune and become what is known as “new money”, were scorned by those who were born with wealth, coined as “old money.” 

While Fitzgerald first portrays the American dream as a positive ideal of self-discovery and the pursuit of happiness, he reveals the moral corruption of those obsessed with wealth — noting the greed, hunger and selfishness that consumes them.

Despite any sacrifices to achieve this dream, Fitzgerald points out how the goal of obtaining wealth, like Gatsby’s dream of obtaining Daisy, is empty, futile and unworthy. 

As the American Dream fell apart, the 1920s generation sought refuge in the past where their dreams were once meaningful, in a bygone era where the American values remain untainted. 

Themes from The Great Gatsby

1. disillusionment of the american dream.

In “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald meticulously portrays the disillusionment of the American Dream through the lives of his characters. Jay Gatsby, the embodiment of this dream, chases the illusion of wealth and success to win back his lost love, Daisy Buchanan. However, as the story unfolds, the hollowness of this pursuit becomes evident.

One significant quote highlighting this disillusionment is when Nick Carraway, the narrator, reflects on the futility of Gatsby’s aspirations:

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.”

Moreover, the tragic demise of Gatsby himself serves as a poignant testament to this theme of disillusionment, highlighting the tragic consequences of chasing an elusive fantasy.

2. Emptiness of the Wealthy

Beneath Tom Buchanan’s immense wealth is a profound lack of fulfilment. As he discusses books with Nick, he demonstrates an attitude of cynicism:

“Civilization’s going to pieces… I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things.”

The extravagant parties hosted by Gatsby also symbolise the superficiality of wealth. Amidst the glittering festivities, Nick observes the juxtaposing emptiness that lies beneath such lavish displays of affluence:

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

Despite amassing vast riches, Gatsby’s life also lacks genuine substance. Even Daisy, a symbol of wealth and status, cannot fill the void in his life, as seen in his longing for an idealized version of her from the past.

Fitzgerald masterfully weaves these instances throughout the narrative, revealing the hollowness and vacuity that often accompany material wealth, thereby dissecting the emptiness within the lives of the ostensibly prosperous characters.

3. Moral Conflict in Pursuit of the American Dream

Jay Gatsby is driven by an unwavering desire for success, but his methods often clash with moral integrity. As he chases after Daisy, Gatsby becomes entangled in a web of deception and corruption.

One notable instance highlighting this moral conflict is when Nick Carraway, the narrator, reflects on Gatsby’s nature, stating,

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

This quote underscores Gatsby’s eventual tragic end, emphasizing the ethical dilemmas inherent in his pursuit of wealth and love.

His relentless ambition and compromised morality ultimately lead to disillusionment, exposing the emptiness behind the façade of the American Dream and revealing the price one might pay when morality is sacrificed in the relentless pursuit of success.

4. The Power Struggle Between Social Classes

F. Scott Fitzgerald also keenly explores the power dynamics inherent in social classes, showcasing the stark divisions and struggles between the wealthy elite and those striving for acceptance.

Gatsby, despite his immense wealth, faces continual rejection by the old-money aristocracy. He yearns for Daisy’s acceptance into their world, realizing the limitations imposed by his nouveau riche status. As he laments,

“Her voice is full of money.”

The novel’s portrayal of lavish parties and opulent lifestyles juxtaposed with the struggles of characters like George Wilson also underscores the societal imbalance and the desperation of those outside the elite circles.

Writing Band 6 Analysis for The Great Gatsby in 3 Steps

We know how easy it is just to jump in and answer the question right away when you’re writing your essay for The Great Gatsby. However, we do recommend that you start by building a solid in-depth analysis of the text before you get writing!

This is because a strong foundational knowledge of the text inside and out can help you identify ideas from it and compose a comprehensive thesis !

So, here is a step-by-step guide on how to drill into an analysis for The Great Gatsby!

Step 1: Choose your example(s) 

A pro tip is to choose an example with a technique . Techniques allow you to delve deeper into the hidden messages that the author is trying to communicate. 

Here is a famous quote from the Great Gatsby: 

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year receded before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning- So, we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” 

This is a pretty long quote from The Great Gatsby, so when you’re writing this into your essay, remember that you can always chop it up into short excerpts to help your essay flow better. 

Step 2: Identify your technique(s)

The best technique is one that allows you to explore the underlying message behind the text. 

Look out for literary techniques that represent another meaning such as metaphors, symbols and motifs, as this can help demonstrate your depth of understanding. 

If you can find multiple techniques within one quote or example, that’s even better!

For the above quote, there are techniques such as metaphor, symbolism and alliteration. 

Step 3: Write the analysis

When writing the analysis, it is important that you explain what the effect of the technique is and how this backs up your argument . In this example, we are going to analyse how this quote discusses the deterioration of the American Dream, one of the prominent Great Gatsby themes.

The green light is a classic symbol of the unattainable American Dream with its greed, materialism and wealth. As Gatsby reaches out to the green light until his death without ever attaining it, it’s a metaphor of how the American dream is far from our reach.  Furthermore, the alliteration of “b” in “beats”, “boats” and “borne back” elicits the effect of being beaten back, which accentuates Gatsby’s futile pursuit of wealth.  There is also another metaphor with the boats moving backwards into the current. This symbolises Fitzgerald’s reflection on his own generation and their reversion to the past ideals once dispelled of the flawed American Dream. Alternatively, this can be perceived as how pursuit of success beats us back into our humble beginnings, reinforcing that true success in the name of wealth is ultimately unattainable. 

If we put all these together in our analysis, it will look like this:

Although the “green light” represents hope in the beginning chapters, it becomes a symbolic image of the flawed American Dream with its “green” colour reminiscent of money and its greed,  superficiality and materialism. Fitzgerald reinforces the unattainable reality of the American Dream through the “green light” which Gatsby yearns for but never acquires, symbolising how the American dream is far from our reach. The alliteration of “b” in “beats”, “boats” and “borne back” evokes the sensation of being beaten down, which reveals how the American Dream has failed individuals with its empty promise, despite its sacrificial pursuit of success. As the boats, representative of society, are metaphorically “borne back ceaselessly into the past,” Fitzgerald reveals how one’s progress in the pursuit of wealth is worthless, as they are tied to their original socioeconomic roots due to systemic injustice perpetrated by the “old money” clan. 

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The Great Gatsby

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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The Green Light

At numerous points in the narrative , a green light emanates from Daisy’s dock, which can be seen from Gatsby’s house. To Gatsby, this light represents his hopes and dreams of rekindling his youthful relationship with Daisy from many years ago. Of this light and Gatsby’s attitude toward it, Nick says, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (176). Beyond Gatsby’s feelings toward Daisy, the light has a broader meaning: It represents the American dream that beckons while remaining just out of reach. Gatsby’s success only emphasizes The Illusion of the American Dream in the 1920s. To achieve his social status, Gatsby had to become a criminal, and even then he is still excluded from the upper echelons of American society and watches it from across the water.

The Valley of Ashes

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How to Write a Motif Essay on "The Great Gatsby"

Laura leddy turner.

A motif is a recurring image, word, object or phrase that helps tie together different parts, such as subplots, in a literary work. A motif essay explains the meaning behind a selected motif and how the author used the motif to drive a specific message of the work. In his novel “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald used a variety of motifs to shape his story into a social commentary on 1920s America and the distinctly different ways it was experienced by those in the lower, middle and upper classes. A successful motif essay for "The Great Gatsby" will identify and analyze a motif, offer a theory for the motif’s message, prove that its message remains consistent throughout the book, and consider why Fitzgerald chose to convey that particular message.

Explore this article

• Choosing the Motif
• Developing and Analyzing the Motif
• Fitzgerald's Motive for Using Motifs
• Defending the Motif

1 Choosing the Motif

One method for identifying a strong motif in "The Great Gatsby" is to reflect on the story -- with the book closed. What are the first things that come to mind about the setting, the plot and the characters, including Gatsby himself? Making a list of these items without looking through the book allows the writer of the essay to recognize which elements of the story made the most impact. These elements can potentially be developed into motifs. For example, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock often creates a lasting visual image for readers of "The Great Gatsby." From the element of the green light, the writer may develop an essay based on color or light as a motif.

2 Developing and Analyzing the Motif

Once the writer has put together a list of potential motifs, research begins in the book for references to those motifs. While perusing the book, the writer may discover other potential motifs to add to the list. The writer should note where the motifs have been used and in what context. Motifs may be used to suggest a mood, signal an underlying personality trait shared by more than one character, or foreshadow similar outcomes to different situations. Once consistent examples of several motifs have been found, the writer should choose one motif to develop. Analyze the motif for variables that could indicate different meanings or messages. If, for example, color has been chosen as a motif for “The Great Gatsby," the essay should indicate the meanings suggested by various colors. If light were chosen as a motif, the type and degree of light as well as absence of light should be analyzed for meaning.

3 Fitzgerald's Motive for Using Motifs

Fitzgerald’s frequent use of motifs and symbolism in “The Great Gatsby” resulted in memorable prose, but also served to add subtlety to his statements about life in “The Jazz Age,” a term Fitzgerald coined to reference the 1920s. At the time of the novel’s writing, the author was part of the same high society whose flaws he was intent on exposing in the book. A motif essay on "The Great Gatsby" should consider that motifs would likely be used to hint at those negative elements within New York’s upper class which Fitzgerald chose not to point a direct finger at. Motifs may be used to allude to greed, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, selfishness, alcoholism and elitism.

4 Defending the Motif

Once the motif has been analyzed and a theory developed by the writer for the motif’s message, the essay must provide evidence to substantiate the theory. If, for example, the writer theorizes that light represents hope in "The Great Gatsby," an example from the text in which lack of light represents hopelessness should be included in the essay. The writer also should consider drawing upon the culture of the 1920s and Fitzgerald’s personal life to provide supporting evidence for the motif’s message. "The Great Gatsby" is considered to be, at least in part, autobiographical, and Fitzgerald himself once said of the character Jay Gatsby, “… he started out as a man I knew and then changed into myself.”

• 1 The Literature Network: F. Scott Fitzgerald

About the Author

Laura Leddy Turner began her writing career in 1976. She has worked in the newspaper industry as an illustrator, columnist, staff writer and copy editor, including with Gannett and the Asbury Park Press. Turner holds a B.A. in literature and English from Ramapo College of New Jersey, with postgraduate coursework in business law.

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Best Analysis: The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Book Guides

The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface, but it's most commonly understood as a pessimistic critique of the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor past to gain an incredible amount of money and a limited amount of social cache in 1920s NYC, only to be rejected by the "old money" crowd. He then gets killed after being tangled up with them.

Through Gatsby's life, as well as that of the Wilsons', Fitzgerald critiques the idea that America is a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top with enough hard work. We will explore how this theme plays out in the plot, briefly analyze some key quotes about it, as well as do some character analysis and broader analysis of topics surrounding the American Dream in The Great Gatsby .

What is the American Dream? The American Dream in the Great Gatsby plot Key American Dream quotes Analyzing characters via the American Dream Common discussion and essay topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.

To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

What Exactly Is "The American Dream"?

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America (read: rich) if they just work hard enough. The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American society that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, tax evasion or state tax avoidance, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of class equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class hierarchy.

The 1920s in particular was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased immigration (and the accompanying xenophobia), changing women's roles (spurred by the right to vote, which was won in 1919), and extraordinary income inequality.

The country was also in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could "strike it rich" on Wall Street. However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in 1929. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, well before the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on display in 1920s New York was just as ephemeral as one of Gatsby's parties.

In any case, the novel, just by being set in the 1920s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that's inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes. With that background in mind, let's jump into the plot!

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Chapter 1 places us in a particular year—1922—and gives us some background about WWI.  This is relevant, since the 1920s is presented as a time of hollow decadence among the wealthy, as evidenced especially by the parties in Chapters 2 and 3. And as we mentioned above, the 1920s were a particularly tense time in America.

We also meet George and Myrtle Wilson in Chapter 2 , both working class people who are working to improve their lot in life, George through his work, and Myrtle through her affair with Tom Buchanan.

We learn about Gatsby's goal in Chapter 4 : to win Daisy back. Despite everything he owns, including fantastic amounts of money and an over-the-top mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate status symbol. So in Chapter 5 , when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an affair, it seems like Gatsby could, in fact, achieve his goal.

In Chapter 6 , we learn about Gatsby's less-than-wealthy past, which not only makes him look like the star of a rags-to-riches story, it makes Gatsby himself seem like someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy.

However, in Chapters 7 and 8 , everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and then himself, leaving all of the "strivers" dead and the old money crowd safe. Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn't even achieve all his wealth through hard work, like the American Dream would stipulate—instead, he earned his money through crime. (He did work hard and honestly under Dan Cody, but lost Dan Cody's inheritance to his ex-wife.)

In short, things do not turn out well for our dreamers in the novel! Thus, the novel ends with Nick's sad meditation on the lost promise of the American Dream. You can read a detailed analysis of these last lines in our summary of the novel's ending .

Key American Dream Quotes

In this section we analyze some of the most important quotes that relate to the American Dream in the book.

But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (1.152)

In our first glimpse of Jay Gatsby, we see him reaching towards something far off, something in sight but definitely out of reach. This famous image of the green light is often understood as part of The Great Gatsby 's meditation on The American Dream—the idea that people are always reaching towards something greater than themselves that is just out of reach . You can read more about this in our post all about the green light .

The fact that this yearning image is our introduction to Gatsby foreshadows his unhappy end and also marks him as a dreamer, rather than people like Tom or Daisy who were born with money and don't need to strive for anything so far off.

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.

"Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge," I thought; "anything at all. . . ."

Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder. (4.55-8)

Early in the novel, we get this mostly optimistic illustration of the American Dream—we see people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream—economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude. At this moment, it does feel like "anything can happen," even a happy ending.

However, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. And even at this point, Nick's condescension towards the people in the other cars reinforces America's racial hierarchy that disrupts the idea of the American Dream. There is even a little competition at play, a "haughty rivalry" at play between Gatsby's car and the one bearing the "modish Negroes."

Nick "laughs aloud" at this moment, suggesting he thinks it's amusing that the passengers in this other car see them as equals, or even rivals to be bested. In other words, he seems to firmly believe in the racial hierarchy Tom defends in Chapter 1, even if it doesn't admit it honestly.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134)

This moment explicitly ties Daisy to all of Gatsby's larger dreams for a better life —to his American Dream. This sets the stage for the novel's tragic ending, since Daisy cannot hold up under the weight of the dream Gatsby projects onto her. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. Thus when Gatsby fails to win over Daisy, he also fails to achieve his version of the American Dream. This is why so many people read the novel as a somber or pessimistic take on the American Dream, rather than an optimistic one.  

...as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. 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 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." (9.151-152)

The closing pages of the novel reflect at length on the American Dream, in an attitude that seems simultaneously mournful, appreciative, and pessimistic. It also ties back to our first glimpse of Gatsby, reaching out over the water towards the Buchanan's green light. Nick notes that Gatsby's dream was "already behind him" then (or in other words, it was impossible to attain). But still, he finds something to admire in how Gatsby still hoped for a better life, and constantly reached out toward that brighter future.

For a full consideration of these last lines and what they could mean, see our analysis of the novel's ending .

Analyzing Characters Through the American Dream

An analysis of the characters in terms of the American Dream usually leads to a pretty cynical take on the American Dream.

Most character analysis centered on the American Dream will necessarily focus on Gatsby, George, or Myrtle (the true strivers in the novel), though as we'll discuss below, the Buchanans can also provide some interesting layers of discussion. For character analysis that incorporates the American Dream, carefully consider your chosen character's motivations and desires, and how the novel does (or doesn't!) provide glimpses of the dream's fulfillment for them.

Gatsby himself is obviously the best candidate for writing about the American Dream—he comes from humble roots (he's the son of poor farmers from North Dakota) and rises to be notoriously wealthy, only for everything to slip away from him in the end. Many people also incorporate Daisy into their analyses as the physical representation of Gatsby's dream.

However, definitely consider the fact that in the traditional American Dream, people achieve their goals through honest hard work, but in Gatsby's case, he very quickly acquires a large amount of money through crime . Gatsby does attempt the hard work approach, through his years of service to Dan Cody, but that doesn't work out since Cody's ex-wife ends up with the entire inheritance. So instead he turns to crime, and only then does he manage to achieve his desired wealth.

So while Gatsby's story arc resembles a traditional rags-to-riches tale, the fact that he gained his money immorally complicates the idea that he is a perfect avatar for the American Dream . Furthermore, his success obviously doesn't last—he still pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to get her back. In other words, Gatsby's huge dreams, all precariously wedded to Daisy  ("He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God" (6.134)) are as flimsy and flight as Daisy herself.

George and Myrtle Wilson

This couple also represents people aiming at the dream— George owns his own shop and is doing his best to get business, though is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life, while Myrtle chases after wealth and status through an affair with Tom.

Both are disempowered due to the lack of money at their own disposal —Myrtle certainly has access to some of the "finer things" through Tom but has to deal with his abuse, while George is unable to leave his current life and move West since he doesn't have the funds available. He even has to make himself servile to Tom in an attempt to get Tom to sell his car, a fact that could even cause him to overlook the evidence of his wife's affair. So neither character is on the upward trajectory that the American Dream promises, at least during the novel.

In the end, everything goes horribly wrong for both George and Myrtle, suggesting that in this world, it's dangerous to strive for more than you're given.

George and Myrtle's deadly fates, along with Gatsby's, help illustrate the novel's pessimistic attitude toward the American Dream. After all, how unfair is it that the couple working to improve their position in society (George and Myrtle) both end up dead, while Tom, who dragged Myrtle into an increasingly dangerous situation, and Daisy, who killed her, don't face any consequences? And on top of that they are fabulously wealthy? The American Dream certainly is not alive and well for the poor Wilsons.

Tom and Daisy as Antagonists to the American Dream

We've talked quite a bit already about Gatsby, George, and Myrtle—the three characters who come from humble roots and try to climb the ranks in 1920s New York. But what about the other major characters, especially the ones born with money? What is their relationship to the American Dream?

Specifically, Tom and Daisy have old money, and thus they don't need the American Dream, since they were born with America already at their feet.

Perhaps because of this, they seem to directly antagonize the dream—Daisy by refusing Gatsby, and Tom by helping to drag the Wilsons into tragedy .

This is especially interesting because unlike Gatsby, Myrtle, and George, who actively hope and dream of a better life, Daisy and Tom are described as bored and "careless," and end up instigating a large amount of tragedy through their own recklessness.

In other words, income inequality and the vastly different starts in life the characters have strongly affected their outcomes. The way they choose to live their lives, their morality (or lack thereof), and how much they dream doesn't seem to matter. This, of course, is tragic and antithetical to the idea of the American Dream, which claims that class should be irrelevant and anyone can rise to the top.

Daisy as a Personification of the American Dream

As we discuss in our post on money and materialism in The Great Gatsby , Daisy's voice is explicitly tied to money by Gatsby:

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was 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. . . . (7.105-6)

If Daisy's voice promises money, and the American Dream is explicitly linked to wealth, it's not hard to argue that Daisy herself—along with the green light at the end of her dock —stands in for the American Dream. In fact, as Nick goes on to describe Daisy as "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl," he also seems to literally describe Daisy as a prize, much like the princess at the end of a fairy tale (or even Princess Peach at the end of a Mario game!).

But Daisy, of course, is only human—flawed, flighty, and ultimately unable to embody the huge fantasy Gatsby projects onto her. So this, in turn, means that the American Dream itself is just a fantasy, a concept too flimsy to actually hold weight, especially in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world of 1920s America.

Furthermore, you should definitely consider the tension between the fact that Daisy represents Gatsby's ultimate goal, but at the same time (as we discussed above), her actual life is the opposite of the American Dream : she is born with money and privilege, likely dies with it all intact, and there are no consequences to how she chooses to live her life in between.

Can Female Characters Achieve the American Dream?

Finally, it's interesting to compare and contrast some of the female characters using the lens of the American Dream.

Let's start with Daisy, who is unhappy in her marriage and, despite a brief attempt to leave it, remains with Tom, unwilling to give up the status and security their marriage provides. At first, it may seem like Daisy doesn't dream at all, so of course she ends up unhappy. But consider the fact that Daisy was already born into the highest level of American society. The expectation placed on her, as a wealthy woman, was never to pursue something greater, but simply to maintain her status. She did that by marrying Tom, and it's understandable why she wouldn't risk the uncertainty and loss of status that would come through divorce and marriage to a bootlegger. Again, Daisy seems to typify the "anti-American" dream, in that she was born into a kind of aristocracy and simply has to maintain her position, not fight for something better.

In contrast, Myrtle, aside from Gatsby, seems to be the most ambitiously in pursuit of getting more than she was given in life. She parlays her affair with Tom into an apartment, nice clothes, and parties, and seems to revel in her newfound status. But of course, she is knocked down the hardest, killed for her involvement with the Buchanans, and specifically for wrongfully assuming she had value to them. Considering that Gatsby did have a chance to leave New York and distance himself from the unfolding tragedy, but Myrtle was the first to be killed, you could argue the novel presents an even bleaker view of the American Dream where women are concerned.

Even Jordan Baker , who seems to be living out a kind of dream by playing golf and being relatively independent, is tied to her family's money and insulated from consequences by it , making her a pretty poor representation of the dream. And of course, since her end game also seems to be marriage, she doesn't push the boundaries of women's roles as far as she might wish.

So while the women all push the boundaries of society's expectations of them in certain ways, they either fall in line or are killed, which definitely undermines the rosy of idea that anyone, regardless of gender, can make it in America. The American Dream as shown in Gatsby becomes even more pessimistic through the lens of the female characters.  

Common Essay Questions/Discussion Topics

Now let's work through some of the more frequently brought up subjects for discussion.

#1: Was Gatsby's dream worth it? Was all the work, time, and patience worth it for him?

Like me, you might immediately think "of course it wasn't worth it! Gatsby lost everything, not to mention the Wilsons got caught up in the tragedy and ended up dead!" So if you want to make the more obvious "the dream wasn't worth it" argument, you could point to the unraveling that happens at the end of the novel (including the deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby and George) and how all Gatsby's achievements are for nothing, as evidenced by the sparse attendance of his funeral.

However, you could definitely take the less obvious route and argue that Gatsby's dream was worth it, despite the tragic end . First of all, consider Jay's unique characterization in the story: "He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty" (6.7). In other words, Gatsby has a larger-than-life persona and he never would have been content to remain in North Dakota to be poor farmers like his parents.

Even if he ends up living a shorter life, he certainly lived a full one full of adventure. His dreams of wealth and status took him all over the world on Dan Cody's yacht, to Louisville where he met and fell in love with Daisy, to the battlefields of WWI, to the halls of Oxford University, and then to the fast-paced world of Manhattan in the early 1920s, when he earned a fortune as a bootlegger. In fact, it seems Jay lived several lives in the space of just half a normal lifespan. In short, to argue that Gatsby's dream was worth it, you should point to his larger-than-life conception of himself and the fact that he could have only sought happiness through striving for something greater than himself, even if that ended up being deadly in the end.

#2: In the Langston Hughes poem "A Dream Deferred," Hughes asks questions about what happens to postponed dreams. How does Fitzgerald examine this issue of deferred dreams? What do you think are the effects of postponing our dreams? How can you apply this lesson to your own life?

If you're thinking about "deferred dreams" in The Great Gatsby , the big one is obviously Gatsby's deferred dream for Daisy—nearly five years pass between his initial infatuation and his attempt in the novel to win her back, an attempt that obviously backfires. You can examine various aspects of Gatsby's dream—the flashbacks to his first memories of Daisy in Chapter 8 , the moment when they reunite in Chapter 5 , or the disastrous consequences of the confrontation of Chapter 7 —to illustrate Gatsby's deferred dream.

You could also look at George Wilson's postponed dream of going West, or Myrtle's dream of marrying a wealthy man of "breeding"—George never gets the funds to go West, and is instead mired in the Valley of Ashes, while Myrtle's attempt to achieve her dream after 12 years of marriage through an affair ends in tragedy. Apparently, dreams deferred are dreams doomed to fail.

As Nick Carraway says, "you can't repeat the past"—the novel seems to imply there is a small window for certain dreams, and when the window closes, they can no longer be attained. This is pretty pessimistic, and for the prompt's personal reflection aspect, I wouldn't say you should necessarily "apply this lesson to your own life" straightforwardly. But it is worth noting that certain opportunities are fleeting, and perhaps it's wiser to seek out newer and/or more attainable ones, rather than pining over a lost chance.

Any prompt like this one which has a section of more personal reflection gives you freedom to tie in your own experiences and point of view, so be thoughtful and think of good examples from your own life!

#3: Explain how the novel does or does not demonstrate the death of the American Dream. Is the main theme of Gatsby indeed "the withering American Dream"? What does the novel offer about American identity?

In this prompt, another one that zeroes in on the dead or dying American Dream, you could discuss how the destruction of three lives (Gatsby, George, Myrtle) and the cynical portrayal of the old money crowd illustrates a dead, or dying American Dream . After all, if the characters who dream end up dead, and the ones who were born into life with money and privilege get to keep it without consequence, is there any room at all for the idea that less-privileged people can work their way up?

In terms of what the novel says about American identity, there are a few threads you could pick up—one is Nick's comment in Chapter 9 about the novel really being a story about (mid)westerners trying (and failing) to go East : "I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life" (9.125). This observation suggests an American identity that is determined by birthplace, and that within the American identity there are smaller, inescapable points of identification.

Furthermore, for those in the novel not born into money, the American identity seems to be about striving to end up with more wealth and status. But in terms of the portrayal of the old money set, particularly Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, the novel presents a segment of American society that is essentially aristocratic—you have to be born into it. In that regard, too, the novel presents a fractured American identity, with different lives possible based on how much money you are born with.

In short, I think the novel disrupts the idea of a unified American identity or American dream, by instead presenting a tragic, fractured, and rigid American society, one that is divided based on both geographic location and social class.

#4: Most would consider dreams to be positive motivators to achieve success, but the characters in the novel often take their dreams of ideal lives too far. Explain how characters' American Dreams cause them to have pain when they could have been content with more modest ambitions.

Gatsby is an obvious choice here—his pursuit of money and status, particularly through Daisy, leads him to ruin. There were many points when perhaps Gatsby ;could have been happy with what he achieved (especially after his apparently successful endeavors in the war, if he had remained at Oxford, or even after amassing a great amount of wealth as a bootlegger) but instead he kept striving upward, which ultimately lead to his downfall. You can flesh this argument out with the quotations in Chapters 6 and 8 about Gatsby's past, along with his tragic death.

Myrtle would be another good choice for this type of prompt. In a sense, she seems to be living her ideal life in her affair with Tom—she has a fancy NYC apartment, hosts parties, and gets to act sophisticated—but these pleasures end up gravely hurting George, and of course her association with Tom Buchanan gets her killed.

Nick, too, if he had been happy with his family's respectable fortune and his girlfriend out west, might have avoided the pain of knowing Gatsby and the general sense of despair he was left with.

You might be wondering about George—after all, isn't he someone also dreaming of a better life? However, there aren't many instances of George taking his dreams of an ideal life "too far." In fact, he struggles just to make one car sale so that he can finally move out West with Myrtle. Also, given that his current situation in the Valley of Ashes is quite bleak, it's hard to say that striving upward gave him pain.

#5: The Great Gatsby is, among other things, a sobering and even ominous commentary on the dark side of the American dream. Discuss this theme, incorporating the conflicts of East Egg vs. West Egg and old money vs. new money. What does the American dream mean to Gatsby? What did the American Dream mean to Fitzgerald? How does morality fit into achieving the American dream?

This prompt allows you to consider pretty broadly the novel's attitude toward the American Dream, with emphasis on "sobering and even ominous" commentary. Note that Fitzgerald seems to be specifically mocking the stereotypical rags to riches story here—;especially since he draws the Dan Cody narrative almost note for note from the work of someone like Horatio Alger, whose books were almost universally about rich men schooling young, entrepreneurial boys in the ways of the world. In other words, you should discuss how the Great Gatsby seems to turn the idea of the American Dream as described in the quote on its head: Gatsby does achieve a rags-to-riches rise, but it doesn't last.

All of Gatsby's hard work for Dan Cody, after all, didn't pay off since he lost the inheritance. So instead, Gatsby turned to crime after the war to quickly gain a ton of money. Especially since Gatsby finally achieves his great wealth through dubious means, the novel further undermines the classic image of someone working hard and honestly to go from rags to riches.

If you're addressing this prompt or a similar one, make sure to focus on the darker aspects of the American Dream, including the dark conclusion to the novel and Daisy and Tom's protection from any real consequences . (This would also allow you to considering morality, and how morally bankrupt the characters are.)

#6: What is the current state of the American Dream?

This is a more outward-looking prompt, that allows you to consider current events today to either be generally optimistic (the American dream is alive and well) or pessimistic (it's as dead as it is in The Great Gatsby).

You have dozens of potential current events to use as evidence for either argument, but consider especially immigration and immigration reform, mass incarceration, income inequality, education, and health care in America as good potential examples to use as you argue about the current state of the American Dream. Your writing will be especially powerful if you can point to some specific current events to support your argument.

What's Next?

In this post, we discussed how important money is to the novel's version of the American Dream. You can read even more about money and materialism in The Great Gatsby right here .

Want to indulge in a little materialism of your own? Take a look through these 15 must-have items for any Great Gatsby fan .

Get complete guides to Jay Gatsby , George Wilson and Myrtle Wilson to get even more background on the "dreamers" in the novel.

Like we discussed above, the green light is often seen as a stand-in for the idea of the American Dream. Read more about this crucial symbol here .

Need help getting to grips with other literary works? Take a spin through our analyses of The Crucible , The Cask of Amontillado , and " Do not go gentle into this good night " to see analysis in action. You might also find our explanations of point of view , rhetorical devices , imagery , and literary elements and devices helpful.

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"The Great Gatsby": Theme and Symbols

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Life in West Egg and East Egg

Resurfacing gatsby’s past, a deadly crash and a shooting, setting and historical context, publication history, legacy, and adaptations, the meaning of the great gatsby.

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The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby , novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald , published in 1925 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Set in Jazz Age New York , it tells the story of Jay Gatsby , a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth .

Commercially unsuccessful when it was first published, The Great Gatsby —which was Fitzgerald’s third novel—is now considered a classic of American fiction and has often been called the Great American Novel.

• Who is Jay Gatsby, and what are the parties like at his house?
• How does Tom Buchanan react to the relationship that his wife, Daisy, has with Gatsby?
• What shocking event occurs when Daisy, seated beside Gatsby, is driving his car, and how does it affect everyone involved?
• How does The Great Gatsby capture the essence of the Jazz Age?
• How did The Great Gatsby ’s popularity change over time?
• What is the significance of West Egg vs. East Egg, and which wins in the end?

These AI-generated questions have been reviewed by Britannica’s editors.

Plot summary

The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway , a Yale University graduate from the Midwest who moves to New York after World War I to pursue a career in bonds . He recounts the events of the summer he spent in the East two years later, reconstructing his story through a series of flashbacks not always told in chronological order.

In the spring of 1922, Nick takes a house in the fictional village of West Egg on Long Island , where he finds himself living among the colossal mansions of the newly rich. Across the water in the more refined village of East Egg live his cousin Daisy and her brutish, absurdly wealthy husband Tom Buchanan. Early in the summer Nick goes over to their house for dinner, where he also meets Jordan Baker, a friend of Daisy’s and a well-known golf champion, who tells him that Tom has a mistress in New York City . In a private conversation, Daisy confesses to Nick that she has been unhappy. Returning to his house in West Egg, he catches sight of his neighbor Jay Gatsby standing alone in the dark and stretching his arms out to a green light burning across the bay at the end of Tom and Daisy’s dock.

Early in July Tom introduces Nick to his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives with her spiritless husband George Wilson in what Nick calls “a valley of ashes”: an industrial wasteland presided over by the bespectacled eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which stare down from an advertising billboard. Meeting her at the garage where George works as a repairman, the three of them go to Tom and Myrtle’s apartment in Manhattan. They are joined by Myrtle’s sister and some other friends who live nearby, and the evening ends in heavy drunkenness and Tom punching Myrtle in the nose when she brings up Daisy. Nick wakes up in a train station the morning afterward.

As the summer progresses, Nick grows accustomed to the noises and lights of dazzling parties held at his neighbor’s house, where the famous and newly rich turn up on Saturday nights to enjoy Gatsby’s well-stocked bar and full jazz orchestra. Nick attends one of these parties when personally invited by Gatsby and runs into Jordan, with whom he spends most of the evening. He is struck by the apparent absence of the host and the impression that all of his guests seem to have dark theories about Gatsby’s past. However, Nick meets him at last in a rather quiet encounter later in the evening when the man sitting beside him identifies himself as Gatsby. Gatsby disappears and later asks to speak to Jordan privately. Jordan returns amazed by what he has told her, but she is unable to tell Nick what it is.

Nick begins seeing Jordan Baker as the summer continues, and he also becomes better acquainted with Gatsby. One afternoon in late July when they are driving into Manhattan for lunch, Gatsby tries to dispel the rumors circulating around himself, and he tells Nick that he is the son of very wealthy people who are all dead and that he is an Oxford man and a war hero. Nick is skeptical about this. At lunch he meets Gatsby’s business partner Meyer Wolfsheim, the man who fixed the World Series in 1919 (based on a real person and a real event from Fitzgerald’s day). Later, at tea, Jordan Baker tells Nick the surprising thing that Gatsby had told her in confidence at his party: Gatsby had known Nick’s cousin Daisy almost five years earlier in Louisville and they had been in love, but then he went away to fight in the war and she married Tom Buchanan. Gatsby bought his house on West Egg so he could be across the water from her.

At Gatsby’s request, Nick agrees to invite Daisy to his house, where Gatsby can meet her. A few days later he has them both over for tea, and Daisy is astonished to see Gatsby after nearly five years. The meeting is at first uncomfortable, and Nick steps outside for half an hour to give the two of them privacy. When he returns, they seem fully reconciled , Gatsby glowing with happiness and Daisy in tears. Afterward they go next door to Gatsby’s enormous house, and Gatsby shows off its impressive rooms to Daisy.

As the days pass, Tom becomes aware of Daisy’s association with Gatsby. Disliking it, he shows up at one of Gatsby’s parties with his wife. It becomes clear that Daisy does not like the party and is appalled by the impropriety of the new-money crowd at West Egg. Tom suspects that Gatsby is a bootlegger, and he says so. Voicing his dismay to Nick after the party is over, Gatsby explains that he wants Daisy to tell Tom she never loved him and then marry him as though the years had never passed.

Gatsby’s wild parties cease thereafter, and Daisy goes over to Gatsby’s house in the afternoons. On a boiling hot day near the end of the summer, Nick arrives for lunch at the Buchanans’ house; Gatsby and Jordan have also been invited. In the dining room, Daisy pays Gatsby a compliment that makes clear her love for him, and, when Tom notices this, he insists they drive into town.

Daisy and Gatsby leave in Tom’s blue coupe, while Tom drives Jordan and Nick in Gatsby’s garish yellow car. On the way, Tom stops for gas at George Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes, and Wilson tells Tom that he is planning to move west with Myrtle as soon as he can raise the money. This news shakes Tom considerably, and he speeds on toward Manhattan, catching up with Daisy and Gatsby.

The whole party ends up in a parlor at the Plaza Hotel, hot and in bad temper . As they are about to drink mint juleps to cool off, Tom confronts Gatsby directly on the subject of his relationship with Daisy. Daisy tries to calm them down, but Gatsby insists that Daisy and he have always been in love and that she has never loved Tom. As the fight escalates and Daisy threatens to leave her husband, Tom reveals what he learned from an investigation into Gatsby’s affairs—that he had earned his money by selling illegal alcohol at drugstores in Chicago with Wolfsheim after Prohibition laws went into effect. Gatsby tries to deny it, but Daisy has lost her resolve, and his cause seems hopeless. As they leave the Plaza, Nick realizes that it is his 30th birthday.

Gatsby and Daisy leave together in Gatsby’s car, with Daisy driving. On the road they hit and kill Myrtle, who, after having a vehement argument with her husband, had run into the street toward Gatsby’s passing car, thinking it was Tom. Terrified, Daisy continues driving, but the car is seen by witnesses. Coming behind them, Tom stops his car when he sees a commotion on the road. He is stunned and devastated when he finds the body of his mistress dead on a table in Wilson’s garage.

Wilson accusingly tells him it was a yellow car that hit her, but Tom insists it was not his and drives on to East Egg in tears. Back at the Buchanans’ house in East Egg, Nick finds Gatsby hiding in the garden and learns that it was Daisy who was driving, though Gatsby insists that he will say it was he if his car is found. He says he will wait outside Daisy’s house in case Tom abuses Daisy.

The next morning Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house, where he has returned, dejected . Nick advises him to go away, afraid that his car will be traced. He refuses, and that night he tells Nick the truth about his past: he had come from a poor farming family and had met Daisy in Louisville while serving in the army, but he was too poor to marry her at the time. He earned his incredible wealth only after the war (by bootlegging , as Tom discovered).

Reluctantly, Nick leaves for work, while Gatsby continues to wait for a call from Daisy. That afternoon, George Wilson arrives in East Egg, where Tom tells him that it was Gatsby who killed his wife. Wilson makes his way to Gatsby’s house, where he finds Gatsby in his pool. Wilson shoots Gatsby and then himself. Afterward the Buchanans leave Long Island. They give no forwarding address. Nick arranges Gatsby’s funeral, although only two people attend , one of whom is Gatsby’s father. Nick moves back to the Midwest, disgusted with life in the East.

Set in the Jazz Age (a term popularized by Fitzgerald), The Great Gatsby vividly captures its historical moment: the economic boom in America after World War I, the new jazz music, the free-flowing illegal liquor. As Fitzgerald later remarked in an essay about the Roaring Twenties , it was “a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.”

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the 1920s witnessed “a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.”

The brazenly lavish culture of West Egg is a reflection of the new prosperity that was possible during Prohibition , when illegal schemes involving the black-market selling of liquor abounded. Such criminal enterprises are the source of Gatsby’s income and finance his incredible parties, which are probably based on parties Fitzgerald himself attended when he lived on Long Island in the early 1920s.

The racial anxieties of the period are also evident in the novel; Tom’s diatribe on The Rise of the Colored Empires —a reference to a real book published in 1920 by the American political scientist Lothrop Stoddard—points to the burgeoning eugenics movement in the United States during the early 20th century.

Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby in early 1925 while he was living in France, and Scribner’s published it in April of the same year. Fitzgerald struggled considerably in choosing a title, toying with Trimalchio and Under the Red, White and Blue , among others; he was never satisfied with the title The Great Gatsby , under which it was ultimately published.

The illustration for the novel’s original dust jacket was commissioned by Fitzgerald’s editor Maxwell Perkins seven months before he was in possession of the finished manuscript. It was designed by Francis Cugat, a Spanish-born artist who did Hollywood movie posters, and depicts the eyes of a woman hanging over the carnival lights of Coney Island . The design was well-loved by Fitzgerald, and he claimed in a letter to Perkins that he had written it into the book, though whether this refers to the eyes of Doctor Eckleburg or something else is uncertain. Cugat’s painting is now one of the most well-known and celebrated examples of jacket art in American literature .

While Fitzgerald considered The Great Gatsby to be his greatest achievement at the time it was published, the book was neither a critical nor a commercial success upon publication. Reviews were mixed, and the 20,000 copies of its first printing sold slowly. It was printed one more time during Fitzgerald’s life, and there were still copies unsold from this second printing when he died in 1940.

The Great Gatsby was rediscovered a few years later and enjoyed an exponential growth in popularity in the 1950s, soon becoming a standard text of high-school curricula in the United States. It remains one of Scribner’s best sellers, and it is now considered a masterpiece of American fiction. In 2021 it entered the public domain in the United States.

There have been several film adaptations of the novel, most notably a production directed by Jack Clayton in 1974, starring Robert Redford as Gatsby, and one in 2013 directed by Baz Luhrmann , starring Leonardo DiCaprio .

Above all, The Great Gatsby has been read as a pessimistic examination of the American Dream . At its center is a remarkable rags-to-riches story, of a boy from a poor farming background who has built himself up to fabulous wealth. Jay Gatsby is someone who once had nothing but who now entertains rich and celebrated people in his enormous house on Long Island. However, even though Gatsby’s wealth may be commensurate with the likes of Tom Buchanan’s, he is ultimately unable to break into the “distinguished secret society” of those who were born wealthy. His attempt to win Daisy Buchanan, a woman from a well-established family of the American elite, ends in disaster and his death.

This tension between “new money” and “old money” is represented in the book by the contrast between West Egg and East Egg. West Egg is portrayed as a tawdry, brash society that “chafed under the old euphemisms,” full of people who have made their money in an age of unprecedented materialism. East Egg, in contrast, is a refined society populated by America’s “staid nobility,” those who have inherited their wealth and who frown on the rawness of West Egg. In the end, it is East Egg that might be said to triumph: while Gatsby is shot and his garish parties are dispersed, Tom and Daisy are unharmed by the terrible events of the summer.

The Great Gatsby is memorable for the rich symbolism that underpins its story. Throughout the novel, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a recurrent image that beckons to Gatsby’s sense of ambition. It is a symbol of “the orgastic future” he believes in so intensely, toward which his arms are outstretched when Nick first sees him. It is this “extraordinary gift for hope” that Nick admires so much in Gatsby, his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” Once Daisy is within Gatsby’s reach, however, the “colossal significance” of the green light disappears. In essence, the green light is an unattainable promise, one that Nick understands in universal terms at the end of the novel: a future we never grasp but for which we are always reaching. Nick compares it to the hope the early settlers had in the promise of the New World. Gatsby’s dream fails, then, when he fixates his hope on a real object, Daisy. His once indefinite ambition is thereafter limited to the real world and becomes prey to all of its corruption.

The valley of ashes—an industrial wasteland located between West Egg and Manhattan—serves as a counterpoint to the brilliant future promised by the green light. As a dumping ground for the refuse of nearby factories, it stands as the consequence of America’s postwar economic boom, the ugly truth behind the consumer culture that props up newly rich people like Gatsby. In this valley live men like George Wilson who are “already crumbling.” They are the underclasses that live without hope, all the while bolstering the greed of a thriving economy. Notably, Gatsby does not in the end escape the ash of this economy that built him: it is George Wilson who comes to kill him, described as an “ashen” figure the moment before he shoots Gatsby.

Over the valley of ashes hover the bespectacled eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which appear on the advertising billboard of an oculist. These eyes almost become a moral conscience in the morally vacuous world of The Great Gatsby ; to George Wilson they are the eyes of God. They are said to “brood” and “[keep] their vigil” over the valley, and they witness some of the most corrupt moments of the novel: Tom and Myrtle’s affair, Myrtle’s death, and the valley itself, full of America’s industrial waste and the toiling poor. However, in the end they are another product of the materialistic culture of the age, set up by Doctor Eckleburg to “fatten his practice.” Behind them is just one more person trying to get rich. Their function as a divine being who watches and judges is thus ultimately null , and the novel is left without a moral anchor.

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The American Dream—that hard work can lead one from rags to riches—has been a core facet of American identity since its inception. Settlers came west to America from Europe seeking wealth and freedom. The pioneers headed west for the same reason. The Great Gatsby shows the tide turning east, as hordes flock to New York City seeking stock market fortunes. The Great Gatsby portrays this shift as a symbol of the American Dream's corruption. It's no longer a vision of building a life; it's just about getting rich.

Gatsby symbolizes both the corrupted Dream and the original uncorrupted Dream. He sees wealth as the solution to his problems, pursues money via shady schemes, and reinvents himself so much that he becomes hollow, disconnected from his past. Yet Gatsby's corrupt dream of wealth is motivated by an incorruptible love for Daisy . Gatsby's failure does not prove the folly of the American Dream—rather it proves the folly of short-cutting that dream by allowing corruption and materialism to prevail over hard work, integrity, and real love. And the dream of love that remains at Gatsby's core condemns nearly every other character in the novel, all of whom are empty beyond just their lust for money.

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185 The Great Gatsby : Best Topics and Examples

Looking for some creative titles for The Great Gatsby essay? There are many themes to explore about this novel. We offer you The Great Gatsby essay examples about symbolism, character analysis, the style of the novel, and many other topics.

📙 The Great Gatsby – Essay Writing Tips

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The Great Gatsby, the masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, will help you dive into the Roaring Twenties’ wealth atmosphere. This is a story of a millionaire Jay Gatsby and his passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan

Your professor may ask you to analyze topics such as decadence, money, American Dream, or symbolism in your The Great Gatsby Essay. But what if you have no idea what to write? Well, below, you can find some tips and essay samples that you may use to compose your papers

Tip #1. Analyze symbolism in The Great Gatsby

First, let’s define what symbolism is. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, symbolism is “practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible using visible or sensuous representations.” The Great Gatsby story is full of symbols. And here are just two examples of them:

• The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg painted on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes. You can find a lot of The Great Gatsby essay samples that draw the conclusion that Eckleburg represents God. However, let’s ask a few more questions. Why do these eyes have no mouth or arms, or legs? Does this mean that Eckleburg can only watch people transgressions without any ability to punish them as a God-like entity? Does this billboard mean anything?
• Use of color in Fitzgerald’s story. If you carefully read the novel, you might notice the use of a few colors throughout the book. They are green, gray, gold, and yellow. Think, what do these colors can symbolize and represent these ideas in your paper.

Tip #2. Think about point of view in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is written in the first-person point of view. Nick Carraway, one of the main characters, tells us about the life and thoughts of Gatsby. In your writing, you can imagine how different the novel would be if it were told in the third-person point of view.

You also can provide some examples if the story was told from Gatsby’s perspective.

Tip #3. Assess how the book relates to the American Dream

If you look through the vast majority The Great Gatsby essay titles, you can find out plenty of samples that address the validity of high society or the social class divide. Gatsby had achieved the American Dream by building his wealth. However, he’s still not satisfied with the shallowness of the upper class and wants something more.

In your paper, you can argue why does one can never attain the American Dream, and why dreamers always want more.

Tip #4. Analyze the characters and their relations

Fitzgerald put each character into the novel for a particular reason. And your job is to analyze what they represent and why they are in the story. For example, Tom represents evil, while Daisy represents innocence. Another aspect you should examine is relationships between Daisy and Gatsby, Tom and Daisy, Nick and Gatsby.

Tip #5. Examine the tone of the novel

When we talk about the tone of the story, we mean how the author describes the events and characters. In your paper, decide what the tone of the novel is and analyze how it affects the readers’ attitude to characters and events.

Now, check The Great Gatsby essay examples below and use the acquired ideas to write your own paper!

• The Great Gatsby Reflection Paper Throughout the novel the major character Nick who was the narrator managed to bring out the main themes of the novel as well as developing other characters.
• Analysis of the Shirt Scene in “The Great Gatsby” Film Although the shirts mean nothing to Gatsby without Daisy, the audience watches Gatsby’s facial expression display a great deal of empathy and love whenever Daisy seems distressed, especially in this scene when she begins to […]
• Daisy Buchanan: “I Did Love Him Once, but I Loved You, Too” Another scene shows Daisy’s immoral behavior when she is in the room with Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick. This view shows Daisy’s lustful side in that she pushes Jordan to do the same and is out […]
• The Clock as a Symbol in “The Great Gatsby” By incorporating metaphorical elements that allude to the fleeting nature of time, “the Great Gatsby” emphasizes the idea of the futility of life and the inescapability of the past and its mistakes.
• Tom and Gatsby: Compare and Contrast Essay In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays attention to the relationships between both Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan. Scott Fitzgerald’s book is mainly focused on the relationship of Daisy with Gatsby and Tom, […]
• Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby Therefore, his connection with the Gatsby’s story is that he is depended upon to serve as the mouthpiece of the older generation as he metaphorically transcends through time to retell the Great Gatsby tale accurately […]
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• American Culture in the Novel “The Great Gatsby” In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald documents these changes through an in-depth exploration of cultural changes such as the rise in consumerism, materialism, greed for wealth, and the culture of loosening morals in the 1920s […]
• Silver & Gold: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Although the color palette presented in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is rich, the problem of differing social status is most vividly described in the novel through the use of golden and silver colors that stand […]
• Daisy’s Character Study in “The Great Gatsby” The argument is that the author attempts to describe her as a pure and innocent female to ensure that the reader understands the perspective of Jay, but particular aspects of her true identity are revealed […]
• Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
• Autobiographical Elements in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The story is set during the roaring twenties, a period of significant social and cultural change, and it incorporates many of the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and perceptions of the time.
• Fairy Tale Traits in The Great Gatsby Basing on the several evident parameters, for instance, the character traits, the behavior of prince and princess, and gender distinctions amongst others, Fitzgerald’s masterwork stands out as a variation and sophisticated version of the fairy […]
• Why is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby a Satire? Another aspect of satire in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the wealth associated with Gatsby, as the reader observes in chapter two.
• The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams by Scott Fitzgerald In this analysis, the researcher will try to confirm the argument that the Great Gatsby was a continuation of the Winter Dreams.
• “The Great Gatsby” Film by Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby is a film that stars Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan, and the Southern Belle Daisy. The influence of the past comes out throughout the course of the film.
• The Great Gatsby All these characteristics of America during 1920 are evident and inherent in the main character, Jay Gatsby, in the novel The Great Gatsby. This is one of the themes in the novel The Great Gatsby.
• Novel Analysis: The Great Gatsby and Siddhartha Hesse’s Siddhartha seems complementary to The Great Gatsby as Brahman, the main role in Siddhartha, finds contentment in self-realization and not in money, sensuality, and love.
• Gatsby & Nick in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel of vibrant characters, and paradox is one of the main themes of the book. Even though Daisy and Tom are married, Nick agrees to help Gatsby be with the […]
• ‘The Great Gatsby’: Tom and Blanche Like Tom, Blanche in the book of Street Car Named Desire, is loyal to her sister who is the only member of her family that we come across.
• Time as a Theme in The Great Gatsby The embodiment of these negative aspects comes in the form of Gatsby and his life, which in the end is seen as hollow and empty, just as the morals and values of the characters seen […]
• Architecture in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald From this perspective, the case of Gatsby’s mansion is a symbolic call for leaving behind the anachronistic ideas of aristocracy and embracing American ideals.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Baz Luhrmann The filmmakers never stop depicting Gatsby’s wealth and his otherness. He throws money around and he is a topic of heated debates in the society.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
• The American Dream in The Great Gatsby After spending some time in this neighborhood, Nick finally attends Gatsby’s exuberant parties only to realize that Gatsby organizes these parties to impress Daisy, Nick’s cousin, and wife to Tom.
• Babylon Revisited & The Great Gatsby: Motifs & Themes When he pleads his case to the guardians of Honoria, his sister-in-law Marion, and her husband, he continually evades his escapades of the past and recounts his hard work and sincerity of the present.
• Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and the American Dream “The America Dream’ is a longstanding common belief of the American population that in the United States, people are free to realize the full potential of their labor and their talents and every person in […]
• The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Review Gatsby’s dream to become wealthy to gain Daisy’s attention “is simply believable and is still a common dream of the current time”. However, Gatsby is the story’s main character and is a “personification” of the […]
• Fertile Questions: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The two fertile questions arising from the novel are: what are political and economic impacts of the World War I? and what are the challenges faced by American students born from poor families post-World War […]
• Tom and George in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby At the same time, the motives of Tom and George’s behavior differ due to their backgrounds, origins, and belonging to different social classes.
• “The Great Gatsby”: The American Dream in the Jazz Age The Jazz Age is a period in the history of the United States of America from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression due to the remarkable popularity of […]
• Women’s Role in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald Though the women in the novel are depicted as careless, treacherous, and selfish, the author uses them to underscore the power of the will to rebel against societal norms in pursuit of happiness.
• “The Great Gatsby Directed” by Baz Luhrmann This is due to the fact that the film is an indirect adaptation of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby”.
• The Corrupted American Dream and Its Significance in “The Great Gatsby” The development of the American dream and its impact on the society of the United States is a pertinent topic of discussion for various authors.
• Jay Gatsby: The Great Fool or the Unfortunate Genius The main idea of the work is to show the unfairness of the fate of a poor young man who cannot marry the girl he loves.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald Who will take care of the dead creatures seems not to be in Tom’s order of what to bother him and together with the wife is comfortable enjoying their wealth while the creatures are rotting […]
• Characters in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” The author presents challenges faced in the society as a result of the mixture racial and gender discrimination that a young black girl goes through in search of her dream and personal identity.
• Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald It is imperative to realize that the purpose of the paper is not to carry out a critical analysis of the plays but to carry out a comparison of the attributes in which they relate […]
• What Money Cannot Buy: ‘The Great Gatsby’ Book by F. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is a book that unveils the instrumental role of the social aspect of life among people; which not only concentrates on the economic part of it.
• First-Person Narrative in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” Joyce’s “The Boarding House,” Bowen’s “The Demon Lover” In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Joyce’s short story “The Boarding House,” and the Scottish poem The Demon Lover, the first-person narrative is used differently to achieve the authors’ objectives and create a comprehensive picture of […]
• First-Person Narrative in Bowen’s ”The Demon Lover,” Updike’s ”A&P,” Fitzgerald’s ”The Great Gatsby” In this work, the unworked, repressed experience of the First World War is personified and embodied in the image of the ghost of a person who died in this war.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Jay Gatsby, Jean Valjean and Henry Fleming: The Compare and Contrast Analyses of the Characters The way the characters of the main protagonists are revealed in the novel is one of the most important things in every piece of literature.
• “The Great Gatsby” Novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald However, what the reader should acknowledge is that the author manages to present a wholesome and clear image of the issues and occurrences that defined the United States throughout the 1920s.
• The Great Gatsby’ by Scott Fitzgerald Literature Analysis This is one of the details that can be identified. This is one of the issues that can be singled out.
• Political Satire in American Literature Scott Fitzgerald was one of the more famous satirists of the time, particularly in his production of the work The Great Gatsby.
• The Dilemmas of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a story of a young man in the early twentieth century who seems to know what he wants in the way of that dream and what to do to achieve it.
• The Great Gatsby – Love, Wealth, and Illusion In the novel, the fictional village of West Egg is perhaps one of the key items that symbolize the life of the new millionaires in the city.
• Gatsby & Jean Valjean He is a mysterious person, and no one exactly knows his origins and the ways he used to acquire his fortune.
• The Ethicality of an Action Jay Gatsby As well, an action is “wrong” if it results in the opposite of happiness to the people. Mill’s utilitarian theory can be used to assess the ethically of Jay Gatsby’s action, as presented in the […]
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald & His American Dream In the novel “Tender is the Night,” Fitzgerald describes the society in Riviera where he and his family had moved to live after his misfortune of late inheritance.
• Jay Gatsby & Eponine From Les Miserables: Compare & Contrast Gatsby is the main character in the book “The Great Gatsby,” while Eponine is one of the characters in the book “Les Miserables”.
• Jay Gatsby & Gean Valjean: Characters Comparison This essay compares and contrasts the characters of Gatsby and Jean Valjean in the Les Miserable novels and films. Gatsby strikes the readers as a na ve and lovesick individual though his character is negative.
• Jay Gatsby and Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’: Comparative Valjean’s life contains a series of misfortunes in the sense that he has to hide his true identity. Most of the people in his life were there just for convenience and for the fact that […]
• The Idea of Love in The Great Gatsby and the Parallels or Contrasts That Can Be Drawn With the Presentation of Love in The Catcher in the Rye Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and […]
• Fitzgerald’s American Dream in The Great Gatsby & Winter Dreams To my mind, Winter Dream is a perfect example of the American Dream, since the main hero, Dexter, implemented each point of it, he was persistent and very hard-working, he was a very sensible and […]
• What Are the Literary Devices Used to Create the Image of Jay Gatsby?
• Analyze How Fitzgerald Uses Imagery in the Great Gatsby
• What Do Colors Symbolize in the Great Gatsby?
• How Does Fitzgerald Use Geographical Setting to Show the Contrast Between Social Classes in the Novel?
• How Does Fitzgerald Convey a Notion of the American Dream Through Metaphors and Symbols?
• What Does the Green Light in Daisy’s Window Represent in the Great Gatsby?
• What Does the Valley of Ashes Symbolize in the Great Gatsby?
• What Role Does Nick Carraway’s Narration Play in the Story? If We Got It Through an Omniscient Third-Person Narrator, What Would We Gain or Lose?
• Could the Story Have Been Set in Other Places, Like Chicago or Los Angeles, or Were New York City and Long Island Absolutely Necessary?
• Look at the Novel’s Opening Lines. If We Accept Nick’s Advice When We Read the Story, Will Our Views of It Change? Or, in Other Words, Does Refraining From Criticism Promote Compassion?
• Is There a Hidden Meaning of the Title of the Great Gatsby? What Is It?
• How Is the Color White Used Within the Novel? When Does It Make a False Representation of Innocence? When Does It Truly Represent Innocence?
• What Is the Role of a New York Setting in the Novel’s Storyline?
• What Is the Real Meaning of ‘Great’ in the Title of the Great Gatsby?
• What Significance Do Colors Have in the Party’s Descriptions in Chapter 3?
• Elaborate on the Green Light as the Symbol of the American Dream
• What Is the Meaning of the Phrase “Can’t Repeat the Past?.. Why of Course You Can!” What Does Gatsby Really Want From Daisy?
• What Role Do the Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Play in the Great Gatsby?
• How Is the Great Gatsby a Satirical Representation of the Society?
• Are the Rich in the Novel Really So Careless as Everyone Believes Them to Be?
• Create an Alternative Ending for the Great Gatsby. Justify Your Choice
• What Is the Relationship Between Those Born Rich and Those Who Became Rich in the Novel?
• Discuss Female Characters and Their Significance in the Great Gatsby
• Compare Gatsby and Wilson. In What Ways Are They Similar?
• Who Is the Most Responsible for Gatsby’s Death? Why Is It So?
• Why Do Tom and Daisy Stay Together at the End of the Novel?
• Does Gatsby’s Money Bring Him Real Happiness?
• Can Jay’s Feelings for Daisy in the Great Gatsby Be Considered Love?
• How Do Secondary Characters Affect the Story?
• Who Is the Real Hero in the Great Gatsby?
• Can We Call Jay Gatsby a Romantic Hero or a Villain?
• What Does Jay Gatsby Really Live For in the Novel: the Present or the Past?
• Compare Myrtle and Daisy
• What Does Tom’s Quarrel With Myrtle in Chapter 2 Tell Us About His Personality?
• Elaborate on How Both Tom and Gatsby Want to Change Not Only the Future, but the Past in Chapter 7.
• What Was Gatsby’s Power of Dreaming Like? Was Daisy a Worth Object?
• Is Anyone to Blame for Gatsby’s Death?
• Are There Any Moral Characters in the Novel?
• Can Jordan and Daisy Be Considered Perfect Role Models for the Upper Class in America? Why or Why Not?
• Is Gatsby Really Great? In What Way? How Does His Greatness Evolve as the Plot Unfolds?
• How Does Nick’s Character Change over the Course of the Great Gatsby?
• Does Gatsby Deserve the Definition of a Self-Made Man? Why or Why Not?
• What Role Does Daisy Play in the Conflict Between Gatsby & Tom?
• Describe How F.S. Fitzgerald’s Life Experiences Influenced the Great Gatsby
• What Are the Central Themes in the Great Gatsby?
• What Roles Do Fidelity and Infidelity Play in Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby?
• What Importance Does Sex Have in the Story?
• What Role Does Alcohol Play in the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald?
• Did Fitzgerald Really Criticize the Idea of the American Dream in the Great Gatsby?
• Does Love Play Have Any Importance in the Great Gatsby?
• What Role Does the Relationship Between Geography and Social Values Play in the Novel?
• What Is the Meaning of Time in the Great Gatsby?
• How Do the Aristocratic East Eggers, Tom and the Sloanes, Regard Gatsby in Chapter 6? How Is Their Contempt Connected to the Theme of Social Class in the Novel?
• Analyze the Great Gatsby Through the Prism of Feminist Theory
• How Are the Themes of Kindness and Compassion Presented in the Great Gatsby?
• Describe How the Theme of Ambition Is Presented in the Novel
• Elaborate on How Fitzgerald Contrasts Education and Experience in the Great Gatsby
• Make a Critical Comparison of the Novel With the 2013 Movie
• Make a Comparison of the Novel With the 1949 Movie
• Compare the Great Gatsby Movies of 1949 and 2013
• Compare and Contrast Two Classic American Novels: The Great Gatsbyand the Grapes of Wrath
• How Are Donald Trump and the Great Gatsby’s Tom Buchanan Alike?
• Compare Miller’s Death of a Salesman and the Great Gatsby
• What Other Fictional or Non-fictional Character From a Book or Movie Can Nick Carraway Be Compared To?
• Make a Critical Comparison of the Sun Also Rises and the Great Gatsby
• Compare the Great Gatsby With a Farewell to Arms
• Make a Comparison of Daisy From the Great Gatsby With Henrietta Bingham From Irresistible
• What Pop Stars of Nowadays Daisy Can Be Compared To?
• Macbeth vs. Jay Gatsby: Make a Character Comparison
• Why does Daisy cry about the shirts in chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby?
• What is Daisy’s opinion of Gatsby’s party in chapter 6?
• How does The Great Gatsby explore the ideas of illusion versus reality?
• How did Gatsby measure the success of his party in chapter 6?
• What is the true relationship between Daisy and Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What does Gatsby tell Nick about himself and his past?
• What role do the first lines of The Great Gatsby play?
• What destroyed Gatsby’s dreams in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• What is the cause of the problem between Jordan and Nick?
• Describe Daisy and Gatsby’s new relationship. What is it like?
• Why does Jordan want to leave the group from East Egg?
• What does Old Money vs. New Money mean in The Great Gatsby?
• Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby is the best example of foreshadowing?
• How does Fitzgerald represent the society of his time in thenovel? Would you like to live in the Jazz Era? Why or why not?
• How does Nick describe himself at the beginning of The Great Gatsby?
• How do we know that Myrtle Wilson is not an intellectual?
• Who does the narrator think Daisy is at the end of the story?
• What role does the book “The Rise of the Colored Empires” play in The Great Gatsby?
• How is America shown in The Great Gatsby? What values do the East and the West represent?
• Why did Gatsby fail to achieve the American Dream?
• How did F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby reflect the culture of the 1920s?
• Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby best indicates that Nick is not fully content with his life?
• What role does social class in The Great Gatsby play?
• What does Nick mean by the last line of The Great Gatsby?
• What are the main differences between The Great Gatsby book and movie?
• How does Fitzgerald provide a critical social history of Prohibition-Era America in his novel?
• How does Nick know Daisy and Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What did Dan Cody do for Gatsby? What did Gatsby learn from him?
• How does Myrtle behave as the party progresses in chapter 2?
• Describe the meeting between Gatsby and Daisy in chapter 5. What was it like?
• How does The Great Gatsby reflect the Jazz Age?
• What were the rumors about Gatsby?
• What does The Great Gatsby’s ending mean?
• What part does social class play in The Great Gatsby?
• Why was young Gatsby drawn to Daisy?
• How does Nick describe Tom Buchanan in chapter 1?
• In The Great Gatsby, is Nick a reliable narrator?
• What is the main conflict in The Great Gatsby?
• How does Nick meet Gatsby for the first time?
• Why is Gatsby great?
• How women are portrayed in The Great Gatsby?
• Who killed Myrtle in The Great Gatsby?
• What was Jay Gatsby’s real name & background?
• How is Gatsby different from his guests?
• Who killed Gatsby and how did that happen?
• In chapter 7, why does Gatsby stop giving parties?
• Does money buy love in The Great Gatsby?
• What does “owl eyes” reveal about Gatsby’s books?
• What does Gatsby want from Daisy in chapter 6?
• How does the Narrator describe Gatsby?
• What is Gatsby doing when Nick first sees him?
• How did Gatsby get rich?
• Is The Great Gatsby about love or money?
• Why did Daisy marry Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What role does Dan Cody’s yacht play in Great Gatsby?
• Who attended Gatsby’s funeral?
• What is the climax of The Great Gatsby?
• What is Gatsby’s real history?
• How is society shown in The Great Gatsby?
• What does “her voice is full of money” mean?
• Short Summary
• Summary (Chapter 1)
• Summary (Chapter 2)
• Summary (Chapter 3)
• Summary (Chapter 4)
• Summary (Chapter 5)
• Summary (Chapter 6)
• Summary (Chapter 7)
• Summary (Chapter 8)
• Summary (Chapter 9)
• Symbolism & Style
• Quotes Explained
• Questions & Answers
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Biography
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay Ideas
• The Road Not Taken Topics
• The Yellow Wallpaper Ideas
• Their Eyes Were Watching God Ideas
• The Picture of Dorian Gray Questions
• Heart of Darkness Essay Ideas
• Jane Eyre Ideas
• The Old Man and the Sea Research Topics
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Consumerism in the Great Gatsby: a Reflection of the Roaring Twenties

How it works

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Gatsby’s Flashy Facade: The Hollow Pursuit of Wealth
• 3 Daisy’s Materialistic Desires: Wealth Over Love
• 4 Tom’s Old Money Arrogance: Power and Moral Decay
• 5 Conclusion

Introduction

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, really captures what the Roaring Twenties were all about. It was a time when the U.S. saw a huge economic boom and lots of cultural changes. The book dives deep into themes like wealth, social status, and the American Dream. But one thing that stands out is how consumerism plays a big role in the story. Set in the flashy Jazz Age, the book uses consumerism to show the moral decay and disillusionment that comes with chasing after material success.

By looking at characters like Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan, Fitzgerald shows how shallow and hedonistic consumerism can be. In the end, he suggests that chasing wealth and status leads to feeling empty and morally bankrupt. Let’s take a closer look at how consumerism is shown in The Great Gatsby and what it means for the characters and their society.

Gatsby’s Flashy Facade: The Hollow Pursuit of Wealth

Jay Gatsby is like the poster child for extreme consumerism in the story. His flashy lifestyle, with a huge mansion, wild parties, and fancy clothes, shows off his new wealth. But he’s not just enjoying his riches for himself. He’s using them to catch the attention of Daisy Buchanan, the woman he’s obsessed with. Gatsby’s need to show off is all about trying to relive an idealized past and fit in with the East Egg elite. His big parties are filled with New York’s socialites, symbolizing the era’s excesses but also showing how empty these gatherings are. Even though he seems successful, Gatsby is still an outsider, never fully accepted by the old-money crowd he wants to join. His sad end shows that all his consumerist efforts were pointless. Money can’t buy real happiness or love.

Daisy’s Materialistic Desires: Wealth Over Love

Daisy Buchanan is another key character who shows the allure and emptiness of consumerism. She’s beautiful and charming, but her values are deeply materialistic. Her voice is even described as being “full of money,” showing her consumerist mindset. Daisy’s marriage to Tom Buchanan isn’t about love; it’s about the security and luxury his wealth gives her. She’s so focused on material things that she ignores the moral side of her actions, making choices that favor comfort over doing the right thing. Daisy can’t commit to Gatsby, even though they had a past romance, because she’s too wrapped up in the consumerist idea that wealth equals worth. In the end, she goes back to Tom despite his cheating, showing that in a consumerist world, material comfort often wins over emotional satisfaction.

Tom’s Old Money Arrogance: Power and Moral Decay

Tom Buchanan represents old money and the arrogance that comes with inherited wealth. His consumerism isn’t about showing off new riches but about keeping his dominance and control. His lavish lifestyle, from his big estate to his affairs, shows he believes he’s inherently superior and has the right to consume without consequences. His affair with Myrtle Wilson is another form of consumption, treating people like disposable items. Tom’s disdain for Gatsby, whom he sees as a social climber, highlights the class distinctions that consumerism reinforces. Tom’s indifference to the destruction he causes, like Gatsby’s death and Myrtle’s demise, reveals the moral bankruptcy of consumerism, where human lives are less important than maintaining wealth and power.

In The Great Gatsby, consumerism isn’t just the backdrop; it’s a driving force that shapes the characters and their fates. Through Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, Fitzgerald offers a harsh critique of the 1920s consumerist culture, exposing its superficiality and moral emptiness. Gatsby’s tragic chase for material wealth to achieve his dream, Daisy’s hollow life defined by luxury, and Tom’s ruthless grip on his social status all highlight the novel’s main message: that the American Dream, tainted by consumerism, leads to disappointment and despair. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of consumerism in The Great Gatsby is still relevant today, serving as a warning about the dangers of equating material success with personal worth in any era.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Consumerism in The Great Gatsby: A Reflection of the Roaring Twenties . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/consumerism-in-the-great-gatsby-a-reflection-of-the-roaring-twenties/ [Accessed: 18 Sep. 2024]

"Consumerism in The Great Gatsby: A Reflection of the Roaring Twenties." PapersOwl.com, Sep 17, 2024. Accessed September 18, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/consumerism-in-the-great-gatsby-a-reflection-of-the-roaring-twenties/

"Consumerism in The Great Gatsby: A Reflection of the Roaring Twenties," PapersOwl.com , 17-Sep-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/consumerism-in-the-great-gatsby-a-reflection-of-the-roaring-twenties/. [Accessed: 18-Sep-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Consumerism in The Great Gatsby: A Reflection of the Roaring Twenties . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/consumerism-in-the-great-gatsby-a-reflection-of-the-roaring-twenties/ [Accessed: 18-Sep-2024]

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