The use of cars to portray materialism in The Great Gatsby

“But as I walked down the methods I saw that the evening was not fairly more than. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene (58).”

Soon after the first of Gatsby’s parties that Nick attends, Fitzgerald dedicates two pages completely to a seemingly inconsequential auto accident. The reader does not discover out the name of the owner, or what really happened, so what it substantial about this element is it is symbolic value. It is in these two pages that Fitzgerald introduces the notion of cars symbolizing the material carelessness of America ahead of the Depression. Also, by associating certain characters with a specific brand of auto, or establishing a parallel among a character and his relationship with vehicles, Fitzgerald sheds light upon character flaws, especially regarding gross materialism. By using cars as such important symbols throughout the novel, Fitzgerald points out their manipulation worth. Just as the characters in the novel use cars to escape, move, and loudly proclaim their wealth, the author similarly utilizes this to structure the book. By removing himself as the principal narrator, he is escaping. By his use of flashbacks and by placing scenes out of sequence, the author requires advantage of manipulating the story’s movement. Ultimately, Fitzgerald utilizes this novel to loudly proclaim his feelings towards America at the time of the story.

Reverting back to the auto accident at the end of Gatsby’s celebration, material carelessness proves an critical theme. The individual assumed accountable for the accident says, “I know really tiny about driving-subsequent to nothing. It occurred, and that’s all I know (59).” When the true culprit emerges from the auto, he says, “At initial I din’ notice we’d stopped (60).” Despite the audiences insistence that the car could not be driven, the criminal ignores such warning and says, “No harm in trying (60).” Both of these responses communicate carelessness and frivolity. The complete celebration scene foreshadowed this, describing the guests, as coming and going, “…like moths amongst the whisperings and the champagne and the stars (42).” Such portrayal of Gatsby’s guests cheapens their intentions and shows how they care only about obtaining a great time among the finest goods. The celebration fruits provide yet another foreshadowing of this American carelessness. “Every Friday 5 crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York each Monday these very same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves (43).” Just as the guests arrived on schedule every weeknight, they also left the celebration pulpless and empty. None of the guests truly knew Gatsby, yet they showed up week following week to drink his champagne, eat his meals, and mingle amongst the wealthy. They acquire practically nothing from the celebration except superficial conversation and drunkenness. These shallow qualities of the celebration guests are epitomized at the end of the scene by way of the use of the car accident.

The relationship among the carelessness of this accident as well as the carelessness of Jordan’s driving, offers additional insight into Jordan’s character flaws. Jordan’s dishonesty is shown early in the novel by cheating in a golf tournament, and further defects, such as her pretentious and pompous attitude are revealed by her feelings towards driving. The initial time Fitzgerald tends to make this point clear occurs when Jordan says, “When we had been on a property celebration together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed automobile out in the rain with the best down, and then lied about it…(62)” This dishonesty did not imply quite a lot to Nick, however, and rather he is just produced curious by it. He did spend close consideration to Jordan’s driving, which brings to light her rashness. When Nick tries to inform her how terrible she drives, she responds by saying that despite the fact that she is not careful, other people are. “They’ll preserve out of my way…it takes two to make an accident (63).” After Nick fires back with the possibility of meeting a person as careless as she is, Jordan ignorantly replies with, “I hope I never ever will…I hate careless individuals (63).” This response fully shows Jordan’s lacking sense of responsibility as properly as her sanctimonious perception of herself. Jordan’s logic lacks substance and her self-righteous opinions throw her into the crowd with the rest of the American careless. This accounts for the failure of Nick and Jordan’s connection. Though the two tried to preserve a romantic partnership, Nick is looking for an individual much more genuine, an individual who does not deny her own imperfections, and Jordan cannot give him with that.

Along with the overall American frivolity of the time, vehicles are used to almost personify each and every character. Nick mentions his own automobile only after throughout the complete novel. It is described eight pages into the book, and on this web page, he describes his only possessions when he moved out to the country. “I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days till he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who produced my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself more than the electric stove.” Taking into consideration the subjects of his description, the sentence denotes a sense of loneliness. He could have not described the dog whatsoever, but alternatively, he writes that he as soon as had a dog but no longer does. This creates a sense of loss as the immigrant lady speaking to herself creates a sense of loneliness. Nick’s regular human make contact with consists of his employee who does not even speak his personal language. Simply because of this, one gets the sense that his auto need to also carry some dreary significance. Its old age and ordinariness conveys Nick’s simplistic yet isolated life, as he innocently starts his narrative. This innocence, and somewhat removal from materialistic America, separates him from all the other characters and accounts for his failure in relationships and ultimately, for him moving back to the mid-west.

Nick’s departure from the East is an inevitable choice, as all the characters he meets are shown to be really dishonest and materialistic. Fitzgerald strategically develops each and every character by epitomizing them through vehicles. For example, the 1st time Myrtle is introduced, it is by an association with her husband and cars. Fitzgerald introduces the couple by writing, “Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Vehicles Bought and Sold…(29).” Just as George tends to make a profession promoting what he owns to his patrons, he also gets his wife taken from him by a single of his patrons. The fact that George makes repairs appears to make him second very best, as if he can not already own what is best, he should work to try and get it to that point. Just as Myrtle provides all of her love, and all of herself to Tom, George has to operate to try and get her to really like him. One more exciting twist is that George quite much desires to buy Tom’s automobile from him. When George finds out about Myrtle’s affair, he desperately calls upon Tom to try and make a vehicle deal in order to somehow save his marriage to Myrtle. Tom is responsible for the affair, and sickly agrees to sell his vehicle during George’s desperate plea, as if he is carrying out anything honorable. Such deceiving acts mirror the deceit and manipulation the characters in the book all use.

Even though these characters play essential roles in the narrative, Nick’s connection with Gatsby holds the most significance, and as a result, the association between Gatsby and his vehicle proves really considerable. The narrator when nonchalantly mentions that Gatsby owns a Rolls Royce, the 1st time wonderful consideration is offered to 1 of his vehicles, draws extreme parallels to Gatsby’s personality. Nick’s admiration is exposed by way of his description of the automobile. “I’d noticed it. Everyone had seen it. It was a wealthy cream color, bright with nickel, swollen right here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns (68).” The concision of the very first two sentences, as well as calling the auto “it” in both sentences coveys a sense of entrancement for Nick. He loses himself in the beauty of the auto, and for a second, he can't actually speak, except to state the obvious. The colour of the auto means a wonderful deal because it was regular at that time for factory-made cars to all be black. Consequently, his customized cream-colored automobile screams of his wealth which in turns symbolizes his materialistic intentions. The adjectives Nick uses also paint a picture of majesty. Words such as, “bright,” “swollen,” “Monstrous,” and “triumphant” all generate photos of may possibly, splendor, but also grotesque. Even though this would be fine if it was just meant to describe the auto, the difficulty is that it is quickly following this point in the book, that Nick starts to confuse the greatness of Gatsby’s possessions with the greatness of Gatsby himself. Consequently, this entrancement with the automobile, and the grand adjectives prove to be hazardous, as Gatsby quickly entirely enthralls Nick. For instance, regardless of all the sings pointing towards Gatsby’s criminal activity, Nick defends him for the duration of speculation by his party guests. Also, a comparable sense of entrancement happens at the end of Chapter VI for the duration of a conversation in between Nick and Gatsby. “For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as even though there was much more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they created no sound and what I had nearly remembered was uncommunicable forever (118).” At this point, Gatsby lures Jim into his scheme of attaining Daisy and reaching happiness. The novel soon requires a turn for the worse.

The beginning of the finish of The Great Gatsby occurs in climax of the book, which begins and ends with automobiles. Setting up the scene, Tom insists that he drive Gatsby’s “circus wagon” to the city even though Gatsby drives Tom’s coupe. This switching of automobiles parallels the switching of Daisy’s love from 1st Gatsby to Tom and then the confusion in between the two. Tom calling the vehicle a “circus wagon” is a blow towards Gatsby, creating it seem as if Gatsby must not be taken seriously. At this point in the book, Tom knows about Gatsby’s involvement with boot-legging, and for that reason finds him to be a sham, some thing that can be laughed at, one thing just put on display for entertainment, just as if he was a circus act.

Right after the intense scene revealing the truth of Gatsby’s supply of income as nicely as his affair with Daisy, Tom insists that Daisy leave with Gatsby in Gatsby’s vehicle. In this scene, his vehicle seems to be mimicking their whole affair. Given that Tom contemptuously produced them leave collectively, and considering that he revealed Gatsby’s criminal involvement, the majesty of Gatsby’s car is suddenly observed for its shallowness. It is only suitable at this point for Gatsby’s auto to be the “death vehicle,” since his corruption of the American Dream inevitably leads to failure.Gatsby perverted the thought of achievement, and in an effort to attain his dream of reliving the past with Daisy, he lost sight of the value of honesty and genuine hard perform. His distortion of the American Dream can be observed in the distortion of the plot at the end of the story. The truth that Tom told George it was Gatsby driving the car, and that he makes it possible for George to believe Gatsby was the a single possessing the affair with Myrtle, the fact that it was really Daisy driving the automobile, and the truth that it was Tom who insisted Gatsby and Daisy leave the city when they did, shows how warped American life became when 1 lost sight of honesty. Such integrity is the basis for reaching happiness, so when this is distorted, happiness can't be accomplished. Consequently Gatsby’s automobile, which so vividly displayed his wealth and phony happiness, fittingly leads to tragedy. The reality that his own auto not only kills Myrtle, but it consequently leads to Gatsby’s own death, shows the destruction of confusing happiness with materialism. This carelessness is created from starting to end, and shows Nick’s unavoidable discontent with his life on the East Coast.

The repeated appearance of automobiles in The Wonderful Gatsby significantly symbolizes the materialism of the time, and of the isolated characters in the book. From general carelessness to person distorted perceptions of what a automobile means, Fitzgerald ingeniously portrays America’s obsession with spectacular materialism. As Nick starts his story really innocently with a straightforward hidden automobile of his own, he becomes wrapped up in riding in Gatsby’s grand car, and right after the deaths of both Gatsby and Myrtle, he loses some of his innocence, and gains insight. “One evening I did hear a material vehicle there…Probably it was some final guest who…didn’t know the party was over (188).” By the end of the book, Nick sees the story for it is failure and can no longer be a part of the material planet and the party he had grown accustomed to living. Nick sells his auto, and fittingly heads back to his true house.