The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, has been interpreted by many different people

to mean many different things. The novel, published in 1925, at the time of the economic boom

in the United States, creates a portrait of the Roaring Twenties. Although Fitzgerald had not

known what was to come in 1929, the Great Depression, he did an exceptional job at practically

foretelling people’s futures. The purpose of The Great Gatsby is to show and explain how the

pursuit for wealth and status can ruin lives. Fitzgerald wrote that people have a natural tendency

to desire wealth and status, that wealth and status cannot and will not make one happy, and that

the desire for wealth and status can result in undesired consequences.

The 1920’s was a time of great wealth in the United States and people searched only to

obtain money, whether it was legally or illegally. Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby is the ideal

example of a person who attempted to get rich quick during the Jazz Age. He was born poor and

gained his riches from rumored bootlegging. Fitzgerald wrote, “Americans, while occasionally

willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry” (Fitzgerald 88). Gatsby

however, did not seem to care for money until Daisy came into his life. He, then, realized that

Daisy would never marry him unless he had money and a great status which she could have

attained from him. Fitzgerald explained, “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and

the tired” (Fitzgerald 79). Daisy only wished to pursue wealth and status, which she obtained

when she married Tom, she wanted nothing more. Gatsby, still obsessed with reclaiming Daisy,

hoped that if he was worth...

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...too long with a single dream”(Fitzgerald

161). The desire to want something to too much of an extent is not healthy and will usually result

in unwanted consequences.

Although many people classify The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as a love story, it

is nothing more than a novel about the desire for wealth creating trouble. Fitzgerald wrote about

how people have a natural tendency to desire wealth and status, how wealth and status cannot

and will not make one happy, and how the desire for wealth and status can result in undesired

consequences. The Roaring Twenties was a great time period for a majority of the United States

population; however, all good things must come to an end. As the Roaring Twenties came to an

end, so did Gatsby’s dreams.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004.