The Role Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby started with the common West Egg with the uncommon Mr. Gatsby and ended up with Mr. Gatsby’s tragic death. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, much details, from hip music to sparkle clothes, precisely recreate how the Jazz Age was like in America in the 1920s. The problem is, the Jazz Age is more than party music and fancy clothes for F. Scott Fitzgerald. In a bigger sense, Mr. Gatsby is the iconic for chasing the American dream, which is associated with materialism and immorality.

Mr. Gatsby is pictured as a wealthy man with a big mansion, where parties are held almost every week, and with these two things added up, it almost fulfills the idea of pursing materialism and immorality. However, Gatsby’s American dream is more

However, this kind of glory did not last long, it ended as the summer gradually turned into autumn, when a servant in the mansion tells Gatsby “I’m going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.” (Fitzgerald, 97) The dream faded like the upcoming falling leaves as Tom Buchanan discovered the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. What is worse, it seems like Daisy was not, and never will be, ready to leave Mr. Buchanan. Therefore, the green light on Daisy's dock that Gatsby gazes wistfully at from his own house across the water, which seems like reachable but turns out to be untouchable, also represents the unattainable dream.

“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.” (Fitzgerald, 115)

As Gatsby’s dream was so close from seizing it, that sudden moment of realizing failure was still in the hands of Gatsby makes everything seem so sad. This may be the reason why the author would arrange Gatsby’s house on the west side while the Buchanans on the East Egg, instead of making them neighbors. With a bay away, approaching the east side is not too far for Gatsby by his fancy yellow car, still, the distance is all that matters in this case which foreshadows that Gatsby would never fulfill his American