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Eli Brosowsky

Mrs. Hanson

Block 2

May 2, 2024

The 1920’s was an era of wealth, much like our own. Wealth was idolized, worshipped, and

desired. It was an era of great prosperity, but a prosperity built on greed, corruption, and lies. In

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses symbolism to represent how such greed and desire for wealth

leads to the downfall of all one has built, through the mediums of Gatsby, Nick, and Myrtle.

Gatsby’s desperate drive to reclaim Daisy represents how the accumulation of wealth as an ideal

leads not to satisfaction but rather to self-destruction. Fitzgerald displays this through the

statement that “‘[Daisy’s] voice is full of money’ [Gatsby] said suddenly. That was it. I’d never

understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose 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.” (Fitzgerald 120). This clearly demonstrates Daisy’s role as a stand in for wealth, as she is

described as being made of gold, indicating how truly intertwined the character is with the

concept. Daisy being a representation of wealth thus allows the author to demonstrate how

Gatsby’s thirst for gold destroys him, as alluded to when Daisy exclaims “Oh, you want too

much!... I love you now-Isn't that enough? I can’t help what’s past.” (Fitzgerald 132). Gatsby is

unable to be satisfied with Daisy’s love in the present, representing how the greedy are unable to

accept that they have coin in the present, and must ensure that they have always been and will

always be wealthy. Fitzgerald then shows the result of such greed, with Nick saying that
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“[Gatsby] must have felt that he had lost the warm old world, paid a high price for living too

long with a single dream.” (Fitzgerald 161). With this, Fitzgerald shows the reader the end of the

cycle of greed, with Gatsby having lost the very thing he was oh so desperate to have, and his

life soon after. One more pile in the valley of ashes that surrounded his brilliant home.

Myrtle’s death due to her affair with Tom represents how the poor’s idealization of the rich leads

to their destruction at the hands of their own idols. This is shown first through Myrtle’s affair

with Tom, which she starts due to the poverty of her husband Wilson. She describes this by

saying “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman... I thought he knew something

about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.” (Fitzgerald 21). This shows that to Myrtle,

wealth is directly tied to one’s worth as human being, just as how to the poor the wealthy seem to

be another race entirely. The theme of the actions of the rich holding greater significance to the

poor is continued when Fitzgerald states that in “one of the windows over the garage the curtains

had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car… her eyes, filled

with jealous anger, were fixed not on Tom but on Jordan Baker, who she took to be [Tom’s]

wife.” (Fitzgerald 75). To Tom, who is wealthy, this has been a stop for gas, but for Myrtle, who

is poor, it represents a major paradigm shift in her life. The poor’s idealization of the rich is also

rather bluntly demonstrated by Wilson’s statement that “‘I spoke to [Myrtle]… I told her she

might fool me, but she couldn’t fool God’… [Wilson] was looking at the eyes of T.J.

Eckleburg.” (Fitzgerald 98). To Wilson, T.J. Eckleburg is a god, plainly showing how he views

those of wealth, beyond man. Such thoughts are false however, and lead only to ruin, as shown

by Myrtle’s death, “when [Daisy and Gatsby] left New York [Daisy] was very nervous… and

this woman rushed out at [them] just as [they] were passing a car coming the other way… it

seemed to [Gatsby] that she wanted to speak to [them], thought [they] were somebody she
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knew.” (Fitzgerald 89.) To Myrtle, Tom’s wealth represented attractiveness and safety, and so as

she fled her house, she rushed toward it, and was torn apart by the very things she had once so

dreamed of.

Nick’s desperation to become respected by the rich around him eventually leads him to have to

leave the very place he calls home. Nick first demonstrates his need to fit in with the people

around him when dinning at the Buchanan’s residence, as he tells Daisy that “[she] makes [him]

feel uncivilized.” (Fitzgerald 8). Symbolically, this represents the core of Nick’s character, he

views the rich and powerful as ‘the civilized’ and as such wishes to be integrated with them,

even at the expense of himself. Nick’s desperation for integration is also, partially, the reason

that he agrees to invite Daisy over to his house for Gatsby, as he is shown to see Gatsby’s offer

for integration into the criminal underworld as extremely tempting, as described by the statement

that “under different circumstances [Gatsby’s Offer] may have been one of the crises of [his]

life.” (Fitzgerald 49). Of course, this desperation eventually leads to tragedy as Nick becomes

disillusioned with his friends “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-They smashed up

things… and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness…” (Fitzgerald 109). He

also losses his belief in the city of New York, saying that “After Gatsby’s death, the east was

haunted for [him].” (Fitzgerald 109). And so, like Gatsby who he so wished to be integrated

with, Nick finds himself beating against the current, born on ceaselessly into the past.

The 1920’s lingers like gold in the memory of America. In this age of turmoil, we stretch

backwards, desperately seeking to grasp what is seen as “the golden age”. Greedily, we grasp

for it, that stained glass in our minds, only to watch as it pours from our hands like sand, carrying

our blood from our cut palms with it. Fitzgerald demonstrates this struggle through a wide

variety of characters, all who have lost something to their greed.