People love to make money and make money for love. The themes of love and money are closely related, almost as if they were the same, in The Great Gatsby. The only true love expressed is with material things and with one’s self. ***a sentence getting from love and money to “true love”...money makes love not true b/c….list reasons***
The Gatsby persona was created to fit the upper class lifestyle so his admiration for Daisy’s lifestyle is exaggerated as love. This is proven because the book tells us that Gatsby’s admiration for Daisy didn’t launch until he saw her lavish mansion. Upon meeting her he says that she is the only nice girl he has ever known and doesn’t claim to have feelings for her until he visits her house. “...it …show more content…
Tom and Daisy’s relationship is the best example of this. The two claim to love each other but it seems more that they just deal with each other since they’re already married. Tom states during his argument with Gatsby, "She's not leaving me... certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he put on her finger” (p133). He feels free to practice infidelity because he knows that Daisy would never leave him because of his money and social status. Another example that social status affects relationships is the fact that Gatsby didn’t believe he was worthy of Daisy’s attention because he was poor when he first met her. Fitzgerald writes, “However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past” (p149). He was already striving to be financially successful but an added success would be to share his life with another financially successful person. Another example is Tom and Myrtle. Tom is only with Myrtle for pleasure purposes and she knows that; the only reason she’s okay with it is because she is using him for his wealth. Without Tom, Myrtle is just a working class woman married to a man that works at a car garage in a city where the ashes of trash are dumped. When she is with Tom, she gets to live the high upper class life. When changing out of her substandard clothing into a cream chiffon dress, Myrtle swanked, “It’s just a crazy old thing. I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like” (p?). Her obvious parading of acting like she was rich reveals to the audience that Myrtle is more allured by wealthy culture rather than Tom. Nick also plays a part in