The Influence Of Money In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

The 1920’s were a time of economic indulgences. The stock market was in a period of wild growth and Americans were enjoying their newfound prosperity. America just came off a triumphant success in the First World War and the 1920’s and was the outlandish victory party. The New York Times said, “Gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession” of the 1920’s. The morality which the common citizen had previously upheld became corrupted, and the American Dream, which once meant making a living through integrity and hard work, became tainted, emphasizing the quick, not necessarily honest, acquisition of money and wasteful spending. The life, desires, and ultimate failure of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald deprecates

Gatsby point this notion out when he says, “Daisy is money”. She is the parallel that Fitzgerald sets up to demonstrate that the quest for money is inevitable to fail. Before Gatsby became enamored by her limitless possibilities and defined himself by her he could have had the world. But instead he dedicated his life to getting her as his own. His longing for Daisy is an unhealthy obsession that gears everything Gatsby does. The ostentatious parties were thrown in hopes of her attending. Gatsby buys a huge house and fills it with pretentious things in order to solicit attention from the thing he most desires. The irony is that all of this is a failure. When Daisy finally goes to one of Gatsby’s parties she despises everything about it. No matter what he does Daisy is unobtainable. Nothing is ever enough because Gatsby can never be satisfied. Fitzgerald proves that the blind pursuit of perfection and money, as the 1920’s were to some people, is predestined to fail. When Nick first sees Gatsby he is staring wistfully at a money-colored light in the distance. This is the light on Daisy’s dock. It is just across the lake that separates East and West egg from each other. It seems so close but at the same time can never be