Trinice Sanders

Mrs. Bradberry

AP Language

Mar 4 2008

"Money never made a man happy yet nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum it makes one."

-Proverbs

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

-Seneca

The Shallow End

In the eighties America fell in love with, The Fresh Prince of Bellaire staring Will Smith as Will, a young man who is forced to move in "with his aunty and uncle in Bellaire". Through out the series, America is shown different angles of the shallow and the wealthy. The main exhibit of this shallowness is Hillary, Will's wealthy cousin, who is consistently seen refusing to get a job and constantly rebuffing the advances of any man who is not as wealthy as or wealthier than she. Likewise, in his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald attempts to convince society of the hollowness of the upper class by utilizing his characters, Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, and Daisy Buchanan to demonstrate the heartlessness, built by both unfulfilled dreams and dissatisfied hearts, that occupies the concave vortex that is the world of the rich and prominent.

Accordingly, Fitzgerald introduces Gatsby, a man who has attained wealth for love and waste wealth to stave off loneliness. Gatsby is known for his parties in which he has "several feet of canvas and enough lights to make a Christmas tree of his garden". (Fitzgerald 44) It is therefore proven that Gatsby tries to fill the emptiness in his heart left by his unfulfilled dream of marrying Daisy by entertaining those who are just as lonely as he. The parties are a show of love to the people who are just like Gatsby and he shows them this love because it cannot be given to Daisy. Furthermore, when Gatsby finally gets his chance to see Daisy again he "wants too much"(139) and asks Daisy to "Just tell Tom the truth—that she never loved him—and it's all wiped out forever".(139) This shows Gatsby's blatant disregard for anyone's feelings but his own. His actions are based exclusively on his needs and he does not think of all of the effects of his selfishness including the effects on Daisy and Tom's daughter. Gatsby's unrealized dream of being with Daisy leads him to act heartlessly to attain his dream.

Simultaneously, Tom is trying to satisfy his discontented heart by having an affair and buying the best that money can buy for his house and for his mistress. Tom, when it comes to his affair, is not keen on hiding it in fact, "that he has a mistress is insisted upon where ever he was known. His acquaintances resent the fact that he turns up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at the table, saunters about chatting with whomsoever he knows".(28) This shows his disregard for his wife's reputation and her feeling of coming into a room full of people who know about her husband's affair. Tom thinks that having a mistress makes him look cool when it is really a poison to his marriage and to society as a whole. In addition, Fitzgerald states that "Tom's freedom with money is a matter of reproach".(10) This shows that when one grows up in money or one has had money for a while, one begins to waste money almost feverishly. Tom's lack of frugality demonstrates one of the hollow happiness's attained by wealth. Tom represents the man who thinks he has it all but really has only the surface happiness that wealth and status can provide.

In the same way Daisy makes up for not marrying Gatsby by marrying Tom, futilely trying to make up for her lost dream. Daisy's unhappiness with her marriage is shown early, at the wedding in fact when she states in a drunken moment, "Daisy' changed her mind."(82) The bible states that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Combining these two pieces of evidence it can be said that Daisy new she was making a mistake and she knew she wouldn't be happy but could only bring herself to say so in a drunken moment with that one simple phrase. This also shows that before her drunken statement the situation did not sit quite right with Daisy since she feels she needs to drink so much alcohol before her wedding. Furthermore, Daisy knows that Tom is having and has been having an affair throughout the majority of their marriage and never interferes beyond a shake of her head to indicate that Tom should not take his mistresses call at their dinner table. By accepting his affair her quiet lavish lifestyle stays in place and that is what she wants because her lavish life, no matter how unfulfilling, has become her comfort zone. Though she longs for more out of life, her fear of losing what little happiness she does have keeps her sitting quiet and content in the allusion of happiness that has become her life. For afore mentioned reasons, Daisy represents the typical unhappy female with a cushy lifestyle which she both adores and abhors but in the end just tolerates.

Fitzgerald utilizes Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom to share what should be universal knowledge. Heartlessness is built on a chasm of broken dreams and hearts. Fitzgerald shows his readers that one must not let themselves be sucked into the complex concave current that is the rich and prominent world of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.