What are the major symbols in the great gatsby

Gatsby is a dreamer and a romantic, a man who, by following his dreams, went from rags to riches. Gatsby and Tom, although having both amassed great wealth, are very different characters, and the disparity between them is a central focus of the book. Even Gatsby is utterly selfish at times, for the strength of his friendship with Nick is mainly based on the fact that he is related to Daisy.ДЇitzgerald uses the contrasting morals and values of the characters of his novel to best show the warped lives that those chasing the American dream lived. Daisy too shows signs of selfishness, We get the impression that her attempts to set up Jordan and Nick are more for her own amusement then for their own good, and she has no qualms about using Nick to help get reacquainted with Gatsby. His open affair with Myrtle is testament to this. Tom is by far the most selfish of the characters of the novel, doing as he pleases, with no regard for potential consequences. In fact with the exception of Nick, and possibly Jordan, the personality trait of selfishness is found in every major character of the novel. There is no doubt that many of the characters in The Great Gatsby are extremely selfish. She is merely wondering how she will fill her empty days for the rest of her life. Go buy ten more dogs with itвЂќ (pg 30), as well as trying to listen to other intellectuals talk: вЂњdo you mind is I eat with some people over here? A fellowвЂ™s getting off some funny stuff.вЂќ (pg 102) Daisy too comes over as being a shallow character, a fact best supported by her comment вЂњwhatвЂ™ll we do with ourselves this afternoon? And the day after that, and the next thirty years?вЂќ Daisy does not phrase the question seriously. However, Tom is convinced that he is something of an intellectual and seems to get satisfaction from making what he believes are smart comments, such as when he says: вЂњhereвЂ™s your money. To further emphasis his superficial nature, Fitzgerald uses irony later in the novel, when Tom insists that he has вЂњalmost a second sight sometimesвЂќ (pg 116), a fact that is so obviously incorrect that it is humorous. He displays this in the first chapter of the novel, with the comments he makes about the threat to white supremacy. Tom Buchanan is an excellent example of a trivial and superficial man. Through the course of the novel we see the characters that Fitzgerald has created continually act in a superficial way. More then anything, the ending of the novel reinforces to the reader that money is a superficial desire and that, inevitably, it cannot be responsible for bringing happiness or the fulfillment of a dream. GatsbyвЂ™s money fails to entice Daisy away from her husband, and the death of Myrtle is an event that cannot be erased by any amount of money on TomвЂ™s part. The lust for and obtrusive use of money by the characters is an obvious central theme throughout the novel, but as the text draws to a close Fitzgerald emphasises that money cannot govern human emotions. Rather, Tom represents something that Myrtle has never had- endless wealth- and with this Myrtle correlates happiness. Essentially being of the middle class, MyrtleвЂ™s attraction to Tom is not one based on love and affection. Other characters, such as Myrtle, lust for money. Nick mentions that everybody had seen GatsbyвЂ™s car (pg 63), pointing to the fact that Gatsby flaunted the vehicle and by association his wealth, and Tom flying in polo horses from another city would obviously be outrageously expensive. Examples of this are GatsbyвЂ™s expensive Rolls Royce and TomвЂ™s polo horses that he flew in from Chicago. Some characters, like Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, have money, and are very expressive with it. Despite this however, all of the characters are affected by money, and Fitzgerald uses this fact to influence the response of the reader. The main characters in The Great Gatsby all have very different personalities. Through both subtle hints within the plot, as well as passages that blatantly support FitzgeraldвЂ™s own views, the reader is left only to agree with FitzgeraldвЂ™s feelings towards post war upper class Americans after concluding the novel. Through his excellent writing technique, Fitzgerald reduces the characters of the novel to seeming obsessed with material possessions, petty, superficial and selfish, and indeed he seems to attribute much of this to the setting of the novel, America in the 1920вЂ™s. Scott Fitzgerald shows a clear contempt of the American Dream, an ideal that the characters that he has created either chase or have achieved. Show how the writer has used one or more of these to direct your response in The Great Gatsby. вЂњThe value of reading a text closely is that you can see what the writer is doing- how he or she has used structure or setting or characters or a particular point of view or some aspect of language to direct the readerвЂ™s response.вЂќ

What are the major symbols in the great gatsby