The Great Gatsby Review

“I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy” (54). F. Scott Fitzgerald details these large parties and much more in his American classic, The Great Gatsby. In this story, Nick Carraway, the narrator, moves in next to Jay Gatsby, an eccentric billionaire with a deep passion for Daisy Buchanan, the girl from his past that left him because he was poor. Gatsby tries to win her back by throwing huge parties and flaunting his wealth to prove his love for her. The social occasions depicted in this novel reveal the morals of the characters that surround Jay Gatsby.

The attendees of Gatsby’s parties show that during happy times, everyone wants their share of the fun. Almost everyone in attendance is simply there to have fun on Mr. Gatsby’s dime. People simply appear without invitation, some without even meeting their gracious host, and leave when they have drank and danced to their heart’s content. “Once they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission” (45). Very few of the party-goers actually know Jay Gatsby, and wild rumors circulate about who he really is. People speculate that he was a German spy during the war or that he even killed a man. “It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world” (48). A great deal of Gatsby’s guests simply use him to have a good time, and this becomes evident when his circ...

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...tream of money, Tom, without hesitation. “I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them” (172). Jay Gatsby thought becoming rich could get him everything he wanted, but in the end, he was left with nothing.

Parties and Funerals bring out the good, the bad, and especially the ugly in the characters of this story. Many of their moral shortcomings can be linked to money. Fitzgerald leaves the readers of his great novel with a simple lesson to be learned: money can’t buy happiness. Today’s society is fueled by consumerism. The more buying power an individual has, the happier they appear to be. This is simply not the case. A foundation of friends and family who truly care for one another is what will bring about the greatest joy.