Daisy's Use Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

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1. Materialists  Description of Buchanan’s house: “Georgian colonial mansion … The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile” “…he’d bring down a string of polo ponies” (8)  lap of luxury, excessive wealth  Myrtle’s transformation: "…with the influence of the dress her whole personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality... was converted into impressive hauteur"(31)  indicates how the material (dress) can transform her social status from the poor girl that lived in the Valley of Ashes into a woman of an upper social class, she leaves behind her lower class trappings and in with the specific material possession adopts a new personality  Description of Gatsby’s parties: “On buffet tables, …show more content…

Love and marriage should not be based on wealth or luxury, it is a union between individuals to spend the rest of their lives together. Tom’s superficiality is evident, he undervalues marriage because he thinks he can buy his way in …show more content…

It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful shirts." (92)  another attempt of Gatsby’s to show off his wealth to Daisy that is prone in material pleasures and appreciative in great display of materialism. She isn’t weeping for lost love, she is weeping at the overt display of wealth she sees before her.  “Her voice is full of money‘…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…” (119)  Gatsby understands that after all he erroneously defined her merely by who she was, but by what she had and what she represented. His first feelings were created by the aspiration and admiration of Daisy’s wealth, materialism was the reason the Gatsby was first attracted to Daisy. 2.

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