One of the main sustained motifs throughout the entire book, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the significance of money and the correlating behaviors of those characters with “old money” as opposed to those with “new money.” The “old money” individuals come out almost completely unscathed at the end of the novel, while the “new money” individuals’ lives are changed forever. Money is examined in the novel through the division between East and West Egg, the attitudes of the “old money” individuals, and the correlation between morals and money and happiness and money. East Egg and West Egg are representative of the division between the “old money,” family money passed down through generations, and the “new money,” newly acquired money. Tom and Daisy Buchanan (“old money”) live in East Egg, while Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway (“new money”) live in West Egg. Carraway mentions that he lived “in West Egg, the- well, the less fashionable of the two…Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of the fashionable East Egg glittered along the water,” while Carraway’s house stood “squeezed between two huge places…an eye-sore” (9-10). Carraway also states that Gatsby’s house is “spanking new,” while the Buchanans’ house is a “colonial,” which is
