Materialism in "The Great Gatsby"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the book, "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Specifically, it discusses how Fitzgerald comments on the ill effects of materialism in the 1920s across multiple socio-economic classes by using the character, Nick Carraway's observations. The paper discusses the paramount themes for Fitzgerald in his classic American novel, of materialism and the American dream.

From the Paper:

"History is also an intriguing part of the novel, as another critic notes. Harold Bloom writes, "Fitzgerald makes this parallel between Gatsby's history and America's history explicit on the last page of the novel" (Bloom 35). Bloom refers to the last line of the novel when Nick remarks, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (Fitzgerald 182). Gatsby has always believed man can repeat the past and sustain a significant moment in time. This constant looking back, instead of looking forward is another way materialism corrupts in the novel. Gatsby is so obsessed with the past, when Daisy might have loved him for an instant, he cannot go forward into the future. He cannot, and that is ultimately the end of him."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bloom, Harold, ed. Gatsby. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.
• Callahan, John F. "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Evolving American Dream: The 'Pursuit of Happiness' in Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and the Last Tycoon." Twentieth Century Literature 42.3 (1996): 374+.
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.
• Giltrow, Janet, and David Stouck. "Style as Politics in 'The Great Gatsby.'." Studies in the Novel 29.4 (1997): 476+.
• Gross, Dalton, and MaryJean Gross. Understanding the Great Gatsby: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.

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