The Pursuit Of Money In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is set in the 1920s, a period of incredible prosperity, exorbitance, and brilliance. Although it was an era of incredible success, people became blinded by the immense amount of money neighboring them. As a result, they ventured out to go on a tremendous conquest in search of these riches. However, people lost the true meaning of happiness and solely focused on becoming wealthy. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses symbolism to exhibit that contentment is not merely established on the notion of acquiring money. Myrtle Wilson, who is from the slums of the Big Apple, longs for the procurement of money through the entire novel because she believes prosperity is her passage to happiness. When Nick, Myrtle, …show more content…
Nicks conveys, “I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length …terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns… green leather conservatory” (Fitzgerald 64). Gatsby’s yellow car shows the intense desire for materialistic objects during the 20s. Gatsby purchases the car to show off his incredible achievements in hope of alluring Daisy. Although Gatsby’s means of becoming rich are illegal because he resorts to bootlegging, he does come far from where he commenced. Even though he possesses copious amounts of money, he is not content until he obtains Daisy since she is the one for whom he worked so hard. Fitzgerald’s choice of words is intriguing in this passage. The words swollen and monstrous have negative connotations. Swollen is often associated with a disease or illness. This parallels to people’s thirst for money, which acts as an illness because it prompts them to commit acts they would not do otherwise. The labyrinth that mirrors a dozen suns protects the identity of the person behind the windshield. Similarly, the impoverished James Gatz’s persona is hidden behind a façade of the prosperous Jay Gatsby. Because Gatsby hides his true self, it is evident that he is not complacent with his life. The people who come to his parties believe that Gatsby is complacent with his life because he has money. Anyhow, on the inside, he is not satisfied because he does not have Daisy. Lastly, the green leather mirrors his wealth because currency is green. The color green also symbolizes new life. Gatsby’s identity is transformed from James Gatz into Jay Gatsby, and he lives a new life with all of the money he has earned. Gatsby yearns for much more than just

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