Essay on Conflict in 'The Great Gatsby'

The 1920s, known as the Jazz Age and the Roaring ‘20s, was a decade of great prosperity, booming businesses, the rise of the middle class, and the beginning of new ways to spend leisure time through dancing, nightclubs, and saloons. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the interactions and conflicts between the divisions of the upper class. The first branch, “new money,” includes wealthy people who flaunt their riches and lack social graces, such as Gatsby. On the contrary, “old money” embodies the class of people, such as Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who were born into their wealth, are well aware of money’s abilities, and have a subtle elegance and morality to their character. Fitzgerald reshapes the reader’s broad perspective on the upper class by exploring the specific tensions that arise between 'old money' families that have built up powerful and influential social connections to hide their wealth and superiority behind a shield of civility and the 'new money' class whose recent prosperity has resulted in the absence of social connections and the tendency to overcompensate for their careless behavior with extravagant displays of wealth.

In The Great Gatsby, money is a tremendous motivator in the characters' relationships, inspirations, and outcomes. Money within wealthy couples is a huge factor in the validity of the marriage, and thus problems arise when love interests are spread over two distinct and territorial branches of the upper class. Gatsby comes to realize that members of the “old money” class, especially Daisy, will always have money at the forefront of their desires because it has always been the backbone of their happiness when he says, “‘Her voice is full of money,’ he 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?’” (Fitzgerald 120). Daisy and Gatsby are both wealthy, but it is Gatsby who can not find satisfaction with the money. Gatsby accomplished his goal of becoming wealthy, but his happiness is in Daisy. However, his money is not enough for Daisy, and she chooses to remain with her husband Tom, whom she feels more financially and emotionally stable with. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals that although one may have all the money in the world, it is never enough to keep tension and strain out of a relationship. It seems unusual to analyze a wealthy couple having relationship problems, as people wonder how can wealthy couples be unhappy in their relationships when they have access to anything and everything. However, people within marriages may have gotten married to their significant other for the wrong reasons, such as for wealth, which prevents the formation of an important emotional connection in a relationship. As seen in the novel, materialistic ideas and dreams can create pressure between wealthy couples and leave a person lonely with the only thing that they worked hard for, their money, to take care of them.

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The central conflict in The Great Gatsby pits the divisions of the upper class against one another, and Fitzgerald uses the settings of the novel to highlight the main differences between them. The majority of the action takes place between East Egg and West Egg, representations of the Hamptons in Long Island. Nick, the narrator of the novel, describes his home in comparison to the estates of the “old money” families by saying, “I lived at West Egg, the --- well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them” (Fitzgerald 5). West Egg is where Gatsby lives, and it represents the flashing and loud nature of “new money.” Gatsby did not grow up with money like Daisy, rather he acquired it. Therefore, he does not know how to manage his money or how to engage in his elevated social sphere. Gatsby often looks out longingly over the bay toward Daisy's house and the water that separates them physically is symbolic of the social and economic distance between them. In contrast to West Egg, Tom Buchanan describes his living conditions as he explains, “‘Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,’ he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me as if he were alert to something more. ‘I’d be a God Damn fool to live anywhere else’” (Fitzgerald 10). East Egg represents “old money” tastes of luxury but restraint. Daisy lives in East Egg with her husband and, by putting her in another setting altogether from Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates how even with his wealth, Gatsby cannot be equal to her. The green light at the end of her bay is used to represent the values of the society in which she lives: money and greed.

Past, present, and future are periods that come back to haunt the upper class and bring anxiety to their life whether they represent “old money” or “new money.” Nick and Gatsby express these fears and confusion when they say, “‘I wouldn't ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can't repeat the past.’‘ Can't repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand” (Fitzgerald 110). Nick and Gatsby are constantly troubled by time, as the past haunts Gatsby’s conscience, and the future weighs down on Nick’s mental stability. When Nick tells Gatsby that he can't repeat the past and Gatsby says 'Why of course you can!' it reveals how Gatsby has dedicated his whole life to regaining and recreating a glorious and perfect past with Daisy. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby as, “overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves” (Fitzgerald 150), but Gatsby mixes up “youth and mystery” with history. He believes a single memorable month of love with Daisy can battle with the years and experiences she has partaken with Tom. Just as “new money” is money without social connection, Gatsby's relationship with Daisy exists outside of history. Nick's concerns about the future foreshadow the economic failure that plunged the country into depression and ended the Roaring ‘20s. The day Gatsby and Tom argue at the Plaza Hotel, Nick quickly recognizes that it's his 30th birthday. He imagines the new decade before him as a sinister approaching road and sees the struggle between “old” and “new money,” the end of an era, and the destruction of both standards of wealth.

Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the relationship between the two divisions of the upper class during the 1920s, “new money” and “old money,” and the conflicts that arise between them as they search to form relationships, remember the past, explore the present, and contemplate what their futures hold. He analyzes the journeys of his characters to redefine the reader’s image of wealth during this period and to reveal the extent to which money can buy happiness. Ultimately, Fitzgerald conveys how an image of optimism during a time of prosperity and greatness such as the Roaring ‘20s is not all it is set out to be