Greed in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby :: Great Gatsby Essays

Gatsby and Greed In this day and age, money is a very important asset to have. One needs to have at least adequacy to live on, though great sum of moneys are preferable. In The Great Gatsby, by Thomas F. Fitzgerald, having a large amount of money is not enough. It is also the centering you acquire the money that matters. Gatsby and Tom both have a lot of money yet Daisey picks one over the other, not because of the difference in the amount they have, but because of the manner in which it is attained. To the main characters in the book, money is everything. Tom, Gatsby, and Daisey are all consumed by money and its prestige. Gatsby uses his money as a tool to bait Daisey back into his life by giving her a tour of his possessions inside and outside his house. Because Daisey seems to fall in respect with Gatsby again, it shows that she was not really in love with Tom, it was his old money that she is truly in love with. Money is important to Tom and Daisey because it makes them fee l superior to those who have less. All of these characters have been corrupted by their greed but the one person that has not is Nick, Daiseys cousin. He is nice enough to help Gatsby with Daisey out of friendship, not for his money. In the book, money symbolizes a favorable evil as it destroys lives of people corrupted by wealth. In the first chapter, Fitzgerald treats money as if it was a cookie cutter for social classes and tells how wealth divides the nightspot into different groups. For instance, East Eggers have inherited money whereas western hemisphere Eggers have newly acquired money. Tom is an example of an East Egger who has prestigiously inherited quite a lot of old money. Gatsby is a West Egger who by boot legging, swindling and doing favors for others, has acquired new money. The difference between social and economic classes is best demonstrated by the comparison between Tom and Gatsby. Tom was born an East Egger, which was something that Gatsby could never achiev e. No matter what he did, he would always be a West Egger. Although Gatsby could have been an economic equal to Tom, he would never be a social equal.