Wealth In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald's book The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald 1925) is perfectly written with the intention of providing the reader a vivid view of the wealthy (from the perspective of Nick Carraway) during the Roaring Twenties. During this time in American society, the standards of living were challenged and changed by many different people managing to crawl their way up the class system created by the government. Fitzgerald's book intentionally uses symbols of wealth, love and setting to demonstrate a man's struggle to fulfill his dreams in America. Wealth, is displayed in many different ways throughout the course of this book, is mainly depicted through the separation of East and West Egg. The people living on Long Island are the very…show more content…
Old money, (Fitzgerald 9), includes the people who have inherited their money from a long line of family fortune, and typically look down on the New Money. Daisy is the prime example of old money, "... Still the 'nice' girl who grew up in Louisville in a beautiful house..." (Ornstine 77). New Money, (Fitzgerald 9), includes the people who are self-made and have made their success from true independence in corporate America. For example, in the book, Nick says, " Why they came East I don't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together" (Fitzgerald 6). The latter quote refers to Daisy and Tom, two Old Money characters, who are rich enough to travel to foreign places at their leisure and…show more content…
The personas in this book are the perfect example of the people living during this era and their internal struggles. Most people during this time were swayed away from their morals by their physical or past attractions to someone often led to infidelity or something of that nature. "... It's an attempt to determine that concealed boundary that divides reality from the illusions" (Bewley 38). According to critics this was necessary, "... the romantic hero's aspiration and defeat are equally necessary. Man's destiny, the sin of the attractive romantic hero, is immutable in Fitzgerald's moral and religious perspective" (Gindin 117). The latter describes how Gastby's love for Daisy and the consequences that came with it were necessary to show the moral and religious flaws the the 1920's American society. These flaws are what made the time period so memorable in American history. The love portrayed in The Great Gatsby is an accurate representation of the scandalous sins committed in the Roaring
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