Examples Of Wealth In The Great Gatsby

Throughout ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald presents the idea that the wealthy people are spilt into two distinct groups. The first group are the characters born into wealth, for example; Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. These are the characters that come from generations of wealth and have the ‘easy life’. They do not work, nor have to worry about anything other than themselves. They have security and ‘peers’ whom share the same taste as them. These are the people that are classed as ‘old money’. Furthermore, the other group are the characters that have worked for their wealth or have little wealth to their name, for example; Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Myrtle and George Wilson. These characters all work for a living; they do not have the

Gatsby is the classic example of the American dream, which is shown from his routine featured in chapter 9; ‘practise elocution, poise and how to attain it’, which is example of the American dream due to the fact that it is a sign of self-improvement; he is planning out his life to better it and become more successful. The American dream is the American way of life which strives to be wealthy and successful. Although Gatsby is wealthy, in the Buchanan’s eyes Gatsby’s money is worthless and Gatsby will always be classed as poor. This allows us to deduce the difference between the wealthy and the poor to determine the more genuine characters. Gatsby’s love for Daisy is genuine, throughout the play Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy as sincere. This could also be argued that Gatsby was more obsessed than in love with Daisy as Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Gatsby is highly compulsive and excessive at some points throughout the novel. This is presented from ‘Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay’ which shows that Gatsby is so obsessed with Daisy, he brought a house just to be near her. Despite being obsessive, I believe that Gatsby’s love for Daisy is genuine due to the desire to be with her. In this case Gatsby is more genuine than the ‘old money’ group of wealth due to the idea that Gatsby’s sincere love is

Gatsby genuine when it comes to his love for Daisy, however when it comes to his identity, there is a lack of authenticity and truth behind his words. Comparing Gatsby to the ‘old money’ society of wealth, both Tom and Daisy create a very good comparison. Daisy is the least genuine character within the novel, she is selfish and very unreliable, she portrays herself as loving when she acts as if she loves Gatsby however, and she does not care for him at all which is proven from her lack of attendance at his funeral. In the contrast Tom genuinely loves Myrtle, which is shown from his reaction when finding out she is dead. This suggest that Fitzgerald purposely made the genuity of the characters debatable between readers as it gives the book a topic of discussion as well as the reader will be able to decide for themselves if they believe each character is genuine or not. Overall, I believe that the poor people and the wealthy people are equal in how far they are genuine. Both sides have an equal argument for being either genuine or fake so I believe it is up to the readers interpretation if the poorer characters are more genuine or not. In my opinion I believe that neither the wealthy nor the poor are equal than one