I will be touching upon two themes present in The Great Gatsby. Firstly, the theme of wealth and class is present throughout the story. This theme is explored with the juxtaposition of Gatsby's "new money" and Tom and Daisy's "old money". Gatsby and Nick live on West Egg, while Tom and Daisy live on East Egg which is the richer of the two. Gatsby is gaudy and shows off his wealth excessively during parties at his house.
There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor-boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains.
These vivid descriptions all point towards Gatsby's enormous wealth and how he's explicitly displaying it for the guests to see. We hence form the impression of Gatsby being a very flashy and rich man before we even see him.
However, in contrast to Gatsby as a self-made man with "new money", Tom and Daisy have the aristocratic charm of "old money". The first impression of their house as described by Nick highlights their great wealth and high social standing.
Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon.
From Nick's description of Tom and Daisy's house, we are given the first impression that they are incredibly wealthy people and undoubtedly part of the upper class. It is also assumed that they must be well respected and have great connections to other upper-class people.
Hence, from juxtaposing how Tom and Daisy, and Gatsby are presented on the first impression, Fitzgerald is highlighting the conflict of old money versus new money to the reader. He does this by contrasting Tom and Daisy's refined and sophisticated house to Gatsby's ostentatious and flashy parties.
Secondly, there is also the theme of morality in The Great Gatsby. This is shown through the sins the characters commit. Tom and Myrtle engage in adultery by cheating on Daisy and Wilson respectively. Daisy cheats on Tom by engaging in adultery with Gatsby, who is a bootlegger who made his money illegally. Jordan cheats in her sport.
By the end of the book, Daisy runs over Myrtle but Tom purposely tells Wilson that Gatsby was the one who did it, knowing Wilson would seek revenge. Daisy and Tom even conspire to get Gatsby blamed for Myrtle's death.
Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them, and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own.
This quote highlights the lack of morality of the upper classes, as Tom and Daisy were only concerned with maintaining their lavish lifestyle and did not care for the lower classes that had to suffer the consequences of their actions. This moral decay led to the death of three characters with poor backgrounds; Myrtle, Wilson as well as Gatsby.
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
Nick's evaluation of Tom and Daisy's character at the end sums up accurately their lack of morality, being the insensitive and thoughtless people they are that do not care for anyone who was not in the upper class. They refuse to be held accountable for any bad things they have done and believe their wealth allows them to do whatever they want, as seen from their adultery and Tom's physical abuse of both Myrtle and Daisy and most obviously, them pinning the blame on Gatsby for Myrtle's accident.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores a number of themes. Firstly, there is a strong focus on the theme of wealth. This is shown clearly through the settings of East and West Egg, areas in which the wealthiest citizens enjoy and flaunt their wealth.
Gaining wealth is also an important theme in the story. Gatsby desires wealth, for example, because he believes that it will help him to win back Daisy. This, in turn, leads us to another important theme: love. Remember that love is Gatsby's primary motivator: it is his desire to be with Daisy Buchanan, for instance, that dictates his actions and behavior.
Finally, the American Dream is another key theme in this story. The idea that anybody—regardless of class and status—can achieve his dream is a powerful idea in this story. On the surface, Gatsby appears to achieve this dream since he rises from humble roots to a position of astronomical wealth and influence. His rejection by Daisy, however, and his premature death demonstrate that the American Dream is not quite as achievable as it first seems.
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