Jan 13, · Review where the green light appears to get a better sense of its context: Chapter 1, Chapter 5, Chapter 9, explore the way the end of The Great Gatsby connects to its beginning through the recurring image of the green light and compare and contrast Nick and Gatsby to see what the different ways they relate to the green light says about them Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion Jan 13, · In The Great Gatsby, money is a huge motivator in the characters' relationships, motivations, and outcomes. Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and things: Daisy marries and stays with Tom because of the lifestyle he can provide her, Myrtle has her affair with Tom due to the privileged world it grants her
Best Analysis: Green Light in The Great Gatsby
Book Guides. In The Great Gatsbymoney is a huge motivator in the characters' relationships, motivations, and outcomes. Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and things: Daisy marries and stays with Tom because of the lifestyle he can provide her, Myrtle has her affair with Tom due to the privileged world it grants her access to, and Gatsby even lusts after Daisy as if she is a prize to be won.
After all, her voice is "full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that help with great gatsby essay and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. So how exactly does materialism reveal itself as a theme, how can help with great gatsby essay help us analyze the characters, help with great gatsby essay, and what are some common assignments surrounding this theme?
We will dig into all things money here in this guide. Our citation format in this guide is chapter. We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsbyso using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it Paragraph beginning of chapter; middle of chapter; on: end of chapteror use the search function if you're help with great gatsby essay an online or eReader version of the text.
In the opening pages, Nick establishes himself as someone who has had many advantages in life —a wealthy family and an Ivy League education to name just two. Despite not being as wealthy as Tom and Daisy, his second cousin, they see him as enough of a peer to invite him to their home in Chapter 1. Nick's connection to Daisy in turn makes him attractive to Gatsby. If Nick were just a middle-class everyman, the story could not play out in the same way.
Tom and Daisy 's movements are also supported by their money. At the beginning of the novel they move to fashionable East Egg, after moving around between "wherever people played polo and were rich together," and are able to very quickly pick up and leave at the end of the book after the murders, thanks to the protection their money provides 1.
Daisy, for her part, only begins her affair with Gatsby after a very detailed display of his wealth via the mansion tour. She even breaks down in tears after Gatsby shows off his ridiculously expensive set of colored shirts, crying that she's "never seen such beautiful shirts" before 5.
Gatsby 's notoriety comes from, first and foremost, his enormous wealthwealth he has gathered to win over Daisy. Gatsby was born to poor farmer parents in North Dakota, but at 17, determined to become rich, struck out with the wealthy Dan Cody and never looked back 6.
Even though he wasn't able to inherit any part of Cody's fortune, he used what he learned of wealthy society to first charm Daisy before shipping out to WWI.
In a uniform she had no idea he was poor, especially given his sophisticated manners. Then, after returning home and realizing Daisy was married and gone, he set out to earn enough money to win Daisy over, turning to crime via a partnership with Meyer Wolfshiem to quickly amass wealth 9.
Meanwhile, Tom's mistress Myrtlea car mechanic's wife, puts on airs and tries to pass as rich through her affair with Tom, but her involvement with the Buchanans gets her killed. George Wilsonin contrast, is constrained by his lack of wealth. He tells Tom Buchanan after finding out about Myrtle's affair that he plans to move her West, but he "[needs] money pretty bad" in order to make the move 7. Tragically, Myrtle is hit and killed that evening by Daisy. If George Wilson had had the means, help with great gatsby essay, he likely would have already left New York with Myrtle in tow, saving both of their lives.
Hardly anyone shows up to Gatsby's funeral since they were only attracted by his wealth and the parties, not the man himself.
This is encapsulated in a phone call Nick describes, help with great gatsby essay, to a man who used to come to Gatsby's parties: "one gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor and I should have known better than to call him" 9.
In short, money both drives the plot and explains many of the characters' motivations and limitations. One of the single most important parts of your college application is what classes you choose take in high school in conjunction with how well you do in those classes. Our team of PrepScholar admissions experts have compiled their knowledge into this single guide to planning out your high school course schedule.
Help with great gatsby essay wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry "Lover, help with great gatsby essay, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you! The epigraph of the novel immediately marks money and materialism as a key theme of the book—the listener is implored to "wear the gold hat" as a way to impress his lover.
In other words, wealth is presented as the key to love—such an important key that the word "gold" is repeated twice. It's not enough to "bounce high" for someone, to win them over with your charm. You need wealth, the more the better, to win over the object of your desire. Our introduction to Tom and Daisy immediately describes them as rich, bored, and privileged. Tom's restlessness is likely one motivator for his affairs, while Daisy is weighed down by the knowledge of those affairs.
This combination of restlessness and resentment puts them on the path to the tragedy at the end of the book. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats help with great gatsby essay the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.
On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, help with great gatsby essay, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before…. The description of Gatsby's parties at the beginning of Chapter 3 is long and incredibly detailed, and thus it highlights the extraordinary extent of Gatsby's wealth and materialism.
In contrast to Tom and Daisy's expensive but not overly gaudy mansionand the small dinner party Nick attends there in Chapter 1everything about Gatsby's new wealth is over-the-top and showy, from the crates of oranges brought in and juiced one-by-one by a butler to the full orchestra.
Everyone who comes to the parties is attracted by Gatsby's money and wealth, making the culture of money-worship a society-wide trend in the novel, not just something our main characters fall victim to. After all, "People were not invited—they went there" 3. No one comes due to close personal friendship with Jay. Everyone is there for the spectacle alone. He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.
While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. Gatsby, like a peacock showing off its many-colored tail, flaunts his wealth to Daisy by showing off his many-colored shirts.
And, fascinatingly, this is the first moment of the day Daisy fully breaks down emotionally—not when she first sees Gatsby, not after their first long conversation, not even at the initial sight of the mansion—but at this extremely conspicuous display of wealth. This speaks to her materialism and how, in her world, a certain amount of wealth is a barrier to entry for a relationship friendship or more.
That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, help with great gatsby essay, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it.
Daisy herself is explicitly connected with money here, which allows the reader to see Gatsby's desire for her as desire for wealth, money, and status more generally. So while Daisy is materialistic and is drawn to Gatsby again due to his newly-acquired wealth, we see Gatsby is drawn to her as well due to the money and status she represents, help with great gatsby essay. I couldn't forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified.
It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let help with great gatsby essay people clean up the mess they had made.
Here, in the aftermath of the novel's carnage, Nick observes that while Myrtle, George, help with great gatsby essay, and Gatsby have all died, help with great gatsby essay, Tom and Daisy are not punished at all for their recklessness, they can simply retreat "back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess.
Money: the ultimate shrug-off. This analysis can enrich an essay about old money versus new money, the American dreamor even a more straightforward character analysisor a comparison of two different characters. Mining the text for a character's attitude toward money can be a very helpful way to understand their motivations in the world of s New York.
As an example, let's look briefly at Myrtle. Help with great gatsby essay get our best look at Myrtle in Chapter 2when Tom takes Nick to see her in Queens and they end up going to the New York City apartment Tom keeps for Myrtle and hosting a small gathering after Tom and Myrtle hook up, with Nick in the next room!
Myrtle is obsessed with shows of wealthfrom her outfits, to insisting on a specific cab, to her apartment's decoration, complete with scenes of Versailles on the overly-large furniture: "The living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles" 2.
She even adopts a different persona among her guests : "The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions help with great gatsby essay more violently affected moment by moment and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air" 2.
In Myrtle's eyes, money is an escape from life with her husband in the valley of ashessomething that brings status, and something that buys class. After all, Tom's money secures her fancy apartment and allows her to lord it over her guests and play at sophistication, even while Nick looks down his nose at her.
Obviously there is physical chemistry driving her affair with Tom, but she seems to get as much if not more pleasure from the materials that come with the affair—the apartment, the clothes, help with great gatsby essay, the dog, the parties. So she keeps up this affair, despite how morally questionable it is and the risk it opens up for her—her materialism, in other words, is her primary motivator, help with great gatsby essay.
However, despite her airs, she matters very little to the "old money" crowd, as cruelly evidenced first when Tom breaks her nose with a "short help with great gatsby essay movement" 2, help with great gatsby essay.
In this novel, actual mountain climbing is safer than social climbing. Here are ways to think about frequently assigned topics on this the theme of money and materialism. As discussed above, money—and specifically having inherited money—not only guarantees a certain social class, it guarantees safety and privilege : Tom and Daisy can literally live by different rules than other, less-wealthy people.
While Gatsby, Myrtle, and George all end up dead, help with great gatsby essay, Tom and Daisy get to skip town and avoid any consequences, despite their direct involvement. For this prompt, you can explore earlier examples of Tom's carelessness breaking Myrtle's nose, his behavior in the hotel scene, letting Daisy and Gatsby drive back to Long Island after the fight in the hotel as well as Daisy's throwing a fit just before her wedding but going through with it, kissing Gatsby with her husband in the next room.
Show how each instance reveals Tom or Daisy's carelessness, and how those instances thus foreshadow the bigger tragedy—Myrtle's help with great gatsby essay at Daisy's hands, followed by Tom's manipulation of George to kill Help with great gatsby essay. You can also compare Tom and Daisy's actions and outcomes to other characters to help make your point—Myrtle and Gatsby both contribute to the conflict by participating in affairs with Tom and Daisy, but obviously, Myrtle and Gatsby don't get to "retreat into their money," they both end up dead, help with great gatsby essay.
Clearly, having old money sets you far apart from everyone else in the world of the novel. Want to write the perfect college application essay? Get professional help from PrepScholar. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to your top choice colleges.
Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now :. This is an interesting prompt, since you have to comb through passages of Nick's narration to find his comments about money, and then consider what they could mean, given that he comes from money himself. To get you started, here is a sample of some of Nick's comments on money and the wealthy, though there are certainly more to be found:. Nick's comments about money, especially in the first chapter, are mostly critical and cynical.
First of all, he makes it clear that he has "an unaffected scorn" for the ultra-rich, and help with great gatsby essay both new money and old money critically.
Nick Ain't Straight (The Great Gatsby)
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Jan 13, · In The Great Gatsby, money is a huge motivator in the characters' relationships, motivations, and outcomes. Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and things: Daisy marries and stays with Tom because of the lifestyle he can provide her, Myrtle has her affair with Tom due to the privileged world it grants her Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion Nov 23, · Essay topics the great gatsby. Ratings. 79 % (34) Essay topics the great gatsby. essay on lessons learned in life. Essay topics the great gatsby. essay on lessons learned in life:: Cry of balintawak or pugad lawin essay
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