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Motifs In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Great Gatsby Motifs The 1920’s American dream was all about the pursuit for happiness and letting each person define what happiness meant to them. Many believed that the key to happiness was money which lead to the fast, racy and expensive lifestyle that was lead by many in the 1920’s. In Scott F. Fitzgerald's novel “The Great Gatsby” the main characters where the basic young and wealthy people that made up the upper parts of the social pyramid. Their position in the social pyramid was very important to the novel because it helped highlight one of the one of the main motifs in the book, parties. Parties were one of the most recurring motifs in Fitzgerald's novel. Gatsby threw wild outrageous parties known all around New York as the place to be on the weekends he threw …show more content…

His parties compared to the one Tom threw towards the beginning of the book has a massive difference. Tom’s party was small and simplistic opposed to Gatsby’s over the top parties and it shows the difference between “old money” (Tom) and “new money” (Gatsby.) The difference between the two is significant and makes for major characteristic differences. Tom, who is unsatisfied with his version of the American dream has an affair to fill the void his dissatisfaction gives him, his mistress, Myrtle, lives on the other side of town and it perhaps symbolizes the other side of Tom. Myrtle throws a party and she brings up Daisy someone from the other part of his life Tom lashes out and hits her, he does this because he thinks less of her, she isn’t rich or doesn’t come from money or class like Daisy so in Tom’s mind she’s not as significant shes just another activity to consume his time. Another recurring significant Motif in this novel is, cheating. The constant cheating on one anothers spouses that reoccurs throughout the novel shows the shallowness of the characters and shows the lack of depth in their versions of the American dream. When Tom found out

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