The Great Gatsby

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby the themes of love and money are very closely related. Fitzgerald's novel seems to affirm the Biblical adage that the love of money is the root of all evil, for his characters value money inordinately. This attitude is a central moral concern of the novel. Fitzgerald's characters erroneously believe money can buy them love. The relationships in the novel that are true to this theme are between Gatsby and Daisy, Tom and Myrtle and Tom and Daisy. These major relationships are based on pretense and contrived identities. Gatsby and his “golden girl” Daisy’s relationship is founded on deception. Daisy is attracted to Gatsby, not for who he is but for the illusion he has created, when he “let her believe that he was a person from the same strata as himself, that he was fully able to take care of her (142). Their revived relationship is also based on lies and deceit, as Gatsby attains his money to please her, through bootlegging and other immoral ways. Gatsby tries to buy Daisy’s love throughout the novel, as his lavish parties are thrown “half expecting that Daisy will wander into one of his parties, some night” (77). When Daisy visits Gatsby’s house for the first time, he “revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from Daisy’s well-loved eyes” (88). Furthermore, Gatsby believes that if he can climb to Daisy’s class they would “go back to Louisville and be married from her house-just as if it were five years ago” (106). Although Daisy enjoys Gatsby’s long standing devotion towards her, her feelings towards him are superficial as she finally realised “what she was doing and as though she had never, all along intended doing anything at all” (126). D... ... middle of paper ... ... their problems that “they smash up things and creatures and retreat back into their money….which kept them together.” They are the only couple that remain together, because of their love of money. It is through the major relationships in the novel, that we see the close linkage between the themes of love and money. The relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, illustrates that Gatsby has to buy his way into Daisy’s heart and life. Tom and Myrtle’s affair is based on the love of money and not the love for each other and the marriage of Tom and Daisy is founded on money, and that is the only reason it survives. These major relationships in the novel, The Great Gatsby, are built on the love of money, representing that the themes of love and money are closely linked. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.

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