ipl-logo

Money Doesn T Buy Happiness In The Great Gatsby Analysis

859 Words4 Pages

The American Dream Doesn’t Equal Happiness If the phrase “money can’t buy happiness” was written into a full story, that story would be The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and has countless examples of the phrase “money can’t buy happiness” suggesting that the American dream and loads of money doesn’t suddenly make your life perfect and all your problems are gone, in fact, the story suggests the complete opposite. In the story, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows that every character who has money or character that is around the people that have money end up in more trouble and having more problems than the average person. There are 3 main characters in the story that all help show this point that F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to tell …show more content…

He doesn’t have a lot of money when he moves from the west out to the east. The house he lives in is a small house but from the moment he moves into it he is surrounded by money by having Gatsby’s mansion next door to his. The first few people Nick goes to see are very rich, thus continuing the trend of Nick meeting rich people. Later in the story Nick also meets Gatsby and gets to know him and is offered a lot of rich wonderful things like spending time with Gatsby in his hydro-plane or having lunch with Gatsby and doing many other things with the rich people in the story, yet while surrounded by all this money and wonderful things he gets more and more involved with the problems of the rich people around him. It gets to the point where Nick gets so sick of it all he ends up moving back to the west at the end of the story. In chapter 7 Nick says, “I’d had enough of all of them.” (Fitzgerald) He ends up viewing the east as horrible by the end of the book and before it was a dream, his American dream to head out there and make money turned into something he didn’t like and made him

Show More
Related

West Egg In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

708 Words | 3 Pages

Nick’s American Dream was the opposite of Gatsby’s; he always strived to see and do new things every day, constantly reaching for the future, while Gatsby only wanted to relive his past with Daisy. Once Nick feels like there is nothing left for him to discover in New York, he moves back west to rediscover the lost excitement after Gatsby’s death. Nick also believed that Gatsby was foolish in his American Dream because it was unattainable. Nick uses imagery to illustrate the appeal of West Egg before Gatsby’s death, describing the illusions of “those gleaming, dazzling parties”, stating that he could “still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant” (Fitzgerald 179).

Read More

Examples Of Obsession In The Great Gatsby

1008 Words | 5 Pages

Nick takes this to heart, when he first meets Gatsby he admits that Gatsby is a likable person and is in awe of his wealth. Yet he does not yet see him as a fully developed person. It is not until the end when he learns about Gatsby’s struggles to get to the point at which he is at that he gains a sense of understanding. Yet, Nick is one of the first to notice Gatsby’s destructive nature to achieve his goal of being with Daisy. Nick also has a disdain for the ones who were born rich and did not value the privilege that they have been handed on a silver platter.

Read More

Effects Of Money In The Great Gatsby

719 Words | 3 Pages

Matt Bradley Mr. Rutigliano English 10 1/12/17 How Does Money Impact Personality? Will Smith once said, “Money and Success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.” Similarly, In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan have different personalities although they are both in similar social class, and these similarities in social class ultimately show that money does not affect someone's personality; it is what someone chooses to do with the situation that they are in which determines one’s personality. Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan are in the same Social Class.

Read More

Happiness In The Great Gatsby

587 Words | 3 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary masterpiece "The Great Gatsby" explores the issue of seeking and achieving happiness. The book, which is set in the 1920s, takes us on a journey through the lives of affluent and privileged people who seek happiness through material prosperity. We see the effects of the American Dream and how it may result in unhappiness and a lack of true happiness via the story of enigmatic and affluent guy Jay Gatsby.

Read More

The Great Gatsby Happiness Quotes

564 Words | 3 Pages

Some people say money can't buy you happiness. I think that that statement is very true and in the great gatsby there is a quote that proves that money and status don't make you happy. “His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. ”(147) Even though gatsby has a big home, money, and a bunch of other fancy things he isn't happy.

Read More

Does Money Buy Happiness In The Great Gatsby

1077 Words | 5 Pages

It has long been said that money can’t buy happiness, but still people continue to use it’s acquisition to try to make themselves happy. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the title character struggles with this realization. The book is set in New York during the ‘Roaring 20’s’, a time famous for its parties and lavishness. The book examines the attitudes toward money within the upper particularly through the lense of the new-money title character, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby dedicated his life to the acquisition of money with the goal of eventually acquiring the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan.

Read More

Wealth In The Great Gatsby

2065 Words | 9 Pages

Throughout the novel, Gatsby displays his riches through his mansion, expensive car, and many other things. Nick even describes how extravagant Gatsby’s house is, saying, “The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 5). As Nick describes, Gatsby’s house is very large and modern, which shows his affluence. Before he became rich and privileged, Gatsby was James Gatz, a poor Midwestern boy who dreamed of becoming wealthy. This dream led Gatsby to do crazy things in order to make money, but it worked out for him in the end.

Read More

Winter Dreams American Dream

1044 Words | 5 Pages

Many people are aware of the theory that money cannot buy happiness, but how many people really believe this? In the short story, “Winter Dreams”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dexter Green and Judy Jones are utilized to address this concept. In “Winter Dreams”, the author acknowledges the unrealistic idealization of the American dream and through Dexter’s constant pining for Judy, underlines the perception that greed and obsession over material goods will inevitably lead to personal destruction; however, Fitzgerald most effectively presents the idea that money and success are not the epitome of personal happiness. In “Winter Dreams”, Fitzgerald utilizes Judy Jones to symbolize many peoples goal of succeeding through the American dream and to juxtapose

Read More

What Does Myrtle Wilson Mean In The Great Gatsby

1163 Words | 5 Pages

Albert Einstein, a german physicist who changed the way the world thought about many things, once said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Happiness can be brought about by many different means, but many people might agree that money brings happiness. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald there are many examples in which depending on money for your happiness, led to the destruction of said happiness. Myrtle Wilson and Jay Gatsby are two characters in the novel with a vastly different amount of money and share very similar ends to their lives. Money enticed these characters to seek out the glamorous life that can come with it.

Read More

Money In The Great Gatsby Essay

833 Words | 4 Pages

What is more valuable, love or money? In the novel the ¨The Great Gatsby¨ written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is old and new money, Gatsby who is the main character in the novel comes from the side of new money. Gatsby finds out that his money can buy: a beautiful home, nice cars, friends, however; his wealth cannot buy the one thing that he wants most. Fitzgerald is conveying that money cannot buy certain things. Gatsby's rise and fall throughout the novel show that money isn't what makes a person happy.

Read More

Pursuit Of Goals In The Great Gatsby

940 Words | 4 Pages

However, another character in the book, Nick, had goals that were very different from Gatsby’s goals. Instead of being rich in the city, he wanted to move back to his original home in the west. One could say that Nick also achieved the American Dream, because he too never stopped

Read More

Homosexuality In The Great Gatsby

564 Words | 3 Pages

It is made clear to the reader that Nick gains quite an interest in Gatsby. He actually begins to become obsessed with him. The book states, “Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him… It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.”

Read More

The Great Gatsby: Does Money Buy Happiness?

863 Words | 4 Pages

Does money make the characters in the Great Gatsby happier? In the book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby was dating Daisy, who he truly loved then he had to go fight in World War I so then Tom took advantage of that and married Dasiy who was using tom only for his money. Will Gatsby and Daisy's love be the same as before when Gatsby went to war?

Read More

Argumentative Essay On The Great Gatsby

803 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the course of the book, Nick starts off open-minded, but gradually becomes disgusted with everyone he meets. Nick saw mostly everyone only thinking of themselves and trying to pursue "The American Dream", a staple of the 1920s. The one person Nick liked was Gatsby, because

Read More

Examples Of Being An American In The Great Gatsby

1471 Words | 6 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of the East and West as representations of a “New” America and an “Old” America. The characters in the novel represent different negative aspect of the “New” America, such as being corrupted from money, lust, greed, and deceit, revealing how Fitzgerald believes America is making a turn for the worst in the changing times of the 1920s. The East and West Eggs are used as representations of New and Old America, in order to differentiate the inhabitants of both Eggs. Early on in the book, Fitzgerald describes West Egg

Read More

More about Money Doesn T Buy Happiness In The Great Gatsby Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document