The Theme of Materialism in The Great Gatsby, a Novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“They were careless folks, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up issues and creatures and then retreated back into their funds or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them with each other, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . (9.146)”. This quote describes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s disgust towards income and his philosophy, getting evidently implemented into the story. In reality, The Excellent Gatsby’s central theme tells us that materialism is the major supply of moral downfall, distorted reality, and the society’s plutomania. Fitzgerald reveals it by illustrating the weak moral code, the distorted reality, and the plutomaniac nature of human beings that cash elaborates on.

Fitzgerald’s characterization of Daisy and Tom Buchanan as a couple who represent moral decline shows us the consequences of the selfishness that materialism perpetuates. Daisy is portrayed as a materialistic, ignorant, and somewhat selfish human getting, aiming to satisfy her mercantile desires by concentrating on the external pleasures. Similarly, Tom is portrayed as unfaithful, discourteous, and self-interested, completely complementing the Daisy’s unscrupulous personality. The initial evocative example of their moral decay occurs when the couple decides to marry each and every other: “He came down with a hundred men and women in four private vehicles, and hired a complete floor of the Seelbach Hotel and the day prior to the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at 3 hundred and fifty thousand dollars” (four.135). We clearly see that this marriage indicates no spiritual and moral worth rather, this connection can be defined as a marriage of comfort and demonstrative wealth. Their toxic union is vital to both of them, because it bestows their old money status and bring a distorted sense of stability into their lives. Daisy is in love with an notion of getting access to Tom’s wealth and higher social status, whilst Tom has no willingness to make this marriage better. Fitzgerald underlines and evidently shows us that money, along with external pleasures and materialistic values, only decays absolutely everyone to the core by ruining the morality inside the people’s souls. Certainly, a second instance of the Buchanan family’s morality resignation is vividly shown after the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, dies: ”I named up Daisy half an hour following we found him, known as her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them.”. Even although Tom and Daisy have been clearly portrayed as unbounded with moral requirements all through the story, their abominable essence, along with “vast carelessness” is ultimately revealed. Fitzgerald, in his special manner, implements his attitudes towards cash into one particular of the central themes … that elitism and inherited privilege sets wealthy individuals “above the human beings” in their mindset, resulting in a distorted reality and strong mercantilism.

A mercantile individual, who concentrates on cash, will be deceived, for he has created a error, perceiving the reality via broken glasses. All through the story, Fitzgerald emphasizes that wealth and money define the reality for the characters in the story, at the identical time bringing the illusionary norms into existence: “And I hope she’ll be a fool – That is the best thing a girl can be in this globe, a gorgeous small fool” (1.17). Fitzgerald, by way of the character of Daisy, emphasizes that the society does not worth intelligence and realistic views of anyone instead, to completely adapt to the society’s norms, folkways, and values, an person wants to be ignorant and materialistic. Daisy, perhaps, is not a fool, but her atmosphere demands her to play that part most of the time she pretends to be imbecilic, in order to fit into this cruel and unequal globe. Not only she blindly conforms to the tyrannical rule of the society, but also seems to get pleasure from it: “ Her voice is full of money… That was it. I’d by no means understood prior to. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals song of it…”(7.120). Fitzgerald evidently shows us that Daisy’s reality is nothing at all but money and wealth she is not capable of changing simply because she is satisfied with her higher social status and all the pleasures that she, herself, enjoys. She lives in a tiny and comfy world, ignoring everything that doesn’t meet her distorted expectations. Daisy captured a strong, and incurable disease that the society is willing to spread — craving for wealth .

Fitzgerald’s employment of a materialistic society vividly reveals to us the plutomaniac nature of typical human beings. Fitzgerald is proving this point via the characterization of a poor woman — Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle, in contrast to Daisy and Tom, was not born into income, and as an alternative is relying on her small tricks to attain obsessively wealthy way of life. She shows a comprehensive conscious more than what she is striving for and explicitly shows her plutomaniac nature when it comes to her husband — George’s earnings status: “ The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew correct away I produced a error. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in and in no way even told me about it, and the man came right after it one day when he was out” (2.35). Not only does the Myrtle fixate on the money aspect of her marriage, but also seems mercantile. In this circumstance, Fitzgerald emphasizes that Myrtle’s marriage wasn’t one thing she anticipated it to be. She seems to be a gold digger, considering that she hates her husband for his social and revenue status. “Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became much more violently impacted moment by moment and as she expanded the area grew smaller about her until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot by means of the smoky air “ (two.56). We see Myrtle transforming into somebody she always seemed to be — falsely wealthy, conformative, and materialistic her need for consideration is vividly shown, but she is not the a single to blame, the cash is . Through the theme of corruptive wealth, Fitzgerald evidently shows us… that cash corrupts an individual, and therefore, the society in its entirety. “Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn” (1.4).

Since of Fitzgerald’s use of easy, but strong and central theme of money, he is capable to generate a strong impact that reflects on his own philosophy, which he implemented into the story. Evocative instance of a moral decay, the distorted reality, along with indications of plutomaniac nature of human beings — all implies to the central theme that Fitzgerald is attempting to show to us. By constructing a story in which we clearly see the consequences of materialism, Fitzgerald leads us to conclusion that money in The Fantastic Gatsby is the ultimate source of suffering and rottenness in our lives.