In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby has a lot of money and so does Daisy Buchanan. The only reason why they have money is that their husbands (and in some cases both) had the biggest bootlegging business during The Prohibition Era. The story takes place in 1922-1923, The Prohibition Era was around 1919-1933. The book takes place in 1922, The Prohibition Era ended in 1933.
The reason why The Great Gatsby is considered a classic novel is that people are still interested in the 1920s, The Prohibition Era, and The Roaring Twenties even though these themes are not relevant to our modern age. Even now society is constantly striving for more to make itself happier, which brings us back to Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The main question that this essay will answer is “Does Gatsby’s money bring him happiness? ” This essay will answer that by depicting if Daisy Buchanan or Jay Gatsby are happier at the end of The Great Gatsby.
Daisy Buchanan has three quotes that depict how she feels about The Great Gatsby’s money that are The Mid-Summer Picnic , The Last Good Country , and The Swimmers. The first quote is from The Mid-Summer Picnic where Daisy says, “‘The question is,’ said Daisy, ‘whether you deserve to be an Oxford Bright Boy'” (Fitzgerald 11). This quote shows that she does not want him to have it. The next quote is from The Last Good Country when Nick talks to her sister under the tree.
Nick says, “‘You know I’ve always felt fine about it—about your marrying Tom'” (Fitzgerald 32). Then Jordan Baker replies with “I’d probably marry Tom in that case, but I’m glad I didn’t—for his sake” (Fitzgerald 32). The last quote is The Swimmers where Daisy says “‘Being in love’ began Daisy… ‘It always begins by my being in love with him'” (Fitzgerald 106). The first quote shows how she rejects Gatsby’s money right after he gives it to her. The second one shows that she gets married to Tom Buchanan because he has the money and power.
The last one shows how she admires what Tom has done for her which is get her a lot of The Great Gatsby’s money. All three quotes show that Daisy does not want The Great Gatsby’s money because it makes people greedy and forces people to do things that they would not otherwise do. The Great Gatsby’s money makes Daisy go from The Last Good Country where she didn’t want The Great Gatsby’s money to The Swimmers where she did but it forced her to marry Tom Buchanan which is why The Great Gatsby’s money does not bring Daisy happiness.
The beginning question of whether or not money brings happiness is brought up when we read about how happy and extravagant he wants people to believe his life is. Throughout The Great Gatsby we learn that even though he has made more than enough money and throws bigger and more extravagant parties each time, it still isn’t bringing him happiness like everyone thought it would. First of all, Nick Carraway (the narrator) points out that no one had ever seen Jay Gatsby before the parties he throws.
The first party, The Plaza Hotel party, everyone is confused because it seems like people are talking about The Great Gatsby but don’t know who he is. Later that night, Nick Carraway goes to The Plaza Hotel party and meets Mr. Gatsby for the first time. This leads me to believe that Mr. Gatsby didn’t want anyone knowing who he was until everyone showed up at his house a couple days later for his second big party. Even then, he is still very secretive about his true identity and doesn’t allow any questions answered by anyone except Nick Carraway.
The next aspect of The Great Gatsby that shows how money isn’t everything relates to the fact that The Plaza Hotel party wasn’t given to celebrate the death of Gatsby’s father. Instead, it was thrown to make people think that The Great Gatsby is very wealthy. The “celebration” of Mr. Gatsby’s father’s death was just a cover-up for why he wanted to throw the party in the first place because no one would have known what was going on if he had told them honestly about himself. The reason why The Plaza Hotel party was so important to him is that everyone at his parties described him as being insecure and having low self-esteem.
I don’t see why this would be true about someone who has made so much money already unless they were trying really hard to make everyone think they were rich. The next party he threw, The Ashland House party, was for all the local young people who used to be his neighbors. The fact that it was so much more intimate than The Plaza Hotel party shows how Mr. Gatsby is actually insecure about himself and doesn’t want to be known by everyone in New York because of what they will say about him when he isn’t around.
The Great Gatsby also follows Tom Buchanan’s life as well as Daisy Buchanan’s throughout the book. At first, I thought Nick Carraway shouldn’t have ever gone into The Buchanans’ lives because why would their problems matter? It made me come to the conclusion that money has brought Tom and Daisy no happiness because they have been cheating on each other. The only reason I thought this was because of how unhappy their relationship seemed to be throughout The Great Gatsby. They were married but still flirting, kissing, and carrying on with other men while their husband or wife was watching.
The fact that The Buchanans’ have very different lives from The Gatsbys even though they are both wealthy shows that money isn’t a goal in life that everyone should chase after to bring them happiness. The last aspect I found in The Great Gatsby that proved the point about money not bringing happiness is the way George Wilson felt when he lost all his money. Mr. Wilson used to be a working-class man who lives in The Gatsbys’ neighborhood. The reason The Buchanans and The Gatsbys were so different from The Wilsons was that they had a lot less money than The Gatsby did.
Mr. Wilson worked to earn his living for a long time but he wasn’t happy with himself nor was he making enough money to support his family, which is why he went into The Valley of Ashes – the poorest section of town where all the railroad workers lived (this is also where George Wilson’s house is). Meanwhile, The Buchanans and The Gatsbys lived around other wealthy people who they thought couldn’t be their friends unless they threw big parties for them or invited them over for drinks.