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How Can Money Buy Happiness In The Great Gatsby

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“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness" -Charles Spurgeon. This quote is manifested within the lives of both Daisy and Gatsby. One of the central themes of The Great Gatsby is that money can’t buy happiness, which is displayed by the failure of Gatsby’s dream and Daisy’s jaded nature. Throughout the entirety of the novel, Gatsby throws extravagant parties and fabricates stories of his past in order to attract Daisy to his parties. According to Jordan Baker “ ... he half expected her to wander into one of his parties some night,” (79). This quote reveals that Gatsby went to great lengths, just for a slight chance to see daisy once more. Not only did he purchase the mansion directly across the lake from her, …show more content…
East and West Egg are both wealth areas of New York, but with one highly dividing difference: The source of their money. East Egg is filled with those that have inherited their fortune, whilst West Egg is populated by individuals that have earned their fortune. Those of newly found wealth are more likely to flaunt it, but those born with it do not. This is because wealth is normally to them. Since Daisy married into a rich family she had no need to show her wealth, so Gatsby’s parties had no significance to her. Daisy didn’t care parties, or really anything else for that matter. As Daisy states on page 17 “... I think everything is terrible anyhow, ...I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”. This confession to Nick discloses Daisy's true outlook on the world: she has all the money anyone could ever want, has a beautiful house, and servants, but she is still depressed. Daisy has been disenchanted towards life, and no longer sees the beauty of it …show more content…
After the party, Nick delares that Gatsby wants “... nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say ‘I never loved you.’” (109). After seeing that she didn’t like the party, Gatsby wanted even more to go back to his moment of ephemeral happiness before the war. Five years before the meeting of Gatsby and Daisy at Nick’s house, they had met and fallen in love. After Gatsby was deployed, Daisy met Tom and married him, mostly due to his immense wealth. Gatsby, however, has stuck in Europe after the war, and made his way back to America only to find Daisy was married. He truly believed that if he became rich like Tom, that Daisy would love him. Even with his tremendous wealth, Daisy still didn’t love him like she used to, sending him deeper into

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