Bootleggers and gold-diggers

At various points and to different audiences throughout the novel, affluent bachelor Jay Gatsby styles himself as primarily an old-money blue blood, academic, war hero, or illicit entrepreneur. But in representing himself as favorably as possible, his emphasis is placed nowhere as heavily as on his wealth, on his absurdly overlarge estate and other commodity items his finances allow him. His textbook conspicuous consumption plays an essential role in his wooing of Daisy Buchanan, a woman who values the material pleasures that either Gatsby’s or Tom’s significant fortune could provide her. Her affections towards Gatsby, as it is shown at multiple points throughout the story, is entirely conditional upon his assumed status and assets. While the novel explores the distance between upper and lower classes, Fitzgerald presents the hollowness associated with prosperity through Gatsby and Daisy’s class-constructed romance.

Raised with the “largest of the lawns in Louisville” (79)¹ and a “voice […] full of money” (127),¹ it should come as no surprise that much of Daisy Buchanan’s worldview and many of her relationships were based on class. Most important were the implications of this preoccupation on her romantic life, as it would seem Daisy was disinterested in pursuing any relationship with a man outside “the same strata as herself” – a fact of which Gatsby was aware as he led her to believe that “he was fully able to take care of her” when in actuality “he had no such facilities” (156).¹ The possibility of a true romance, one founded on compatibility and perhaps love, was not only secondary to – but indeed, entirely conditional upon – the existence of material wealth. With Gatsby out of the picture and a man in her life offering necklaces “valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars” (80),¹ it’s predictable that Daisy soon found herself “so mad about her husband” (81).¹ As Tyson asserts in her analysis, possession of Daisy herself holds a sort of sign-exchange value, indicative of his “belong[ing] to her socioeconomic class” (74).² In addition to any genuine affections Gatsby may have towards her, Daisy’s position as a sign-exchange prize feeds into his incessant longing for her.

To attain her, however, Gatsby is forced to maintain his façade of being “a man of fine breeding” (76).¹ He invents pseudo-fictionalized histories to fit the circumstances of conversations, claiming to be “the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west” from whom he “came into a great deal of money” (69–70),¹ “educated at Oxford” (69),¹ and something of a war hero (70–71).¹ He’s the center of many an outlandish rumor and does nothing to dissuade them, bolstering a mysterious and glorious persona for himself in the hopes that he might affirm his higher class by impressing those around him. However, since the real source of his wealth is his illicit bootlegging enterprise and his new-money class status is in effect “stolen,” he constantly feels his constructed history is under attack, going to great lengths to explain away inconsistencies and common-sense logical holes. Should someone decisively cut through his fraudulent appearances and expose his true moral corruption, as Tom successfully does in Chapter VII, he fears he might lose Daisy’s class-assumptive affections forever.

Appearances, it would appear, are essential to Gatsby’s representation of himself. His obsession with the sign-exchange of his opulent lifestyle is made evident by the lavish sort of parties he routinely throws, according to Jordan in hopes that Daisy might “wander into one of [them] some night” (84).¹ The parties are in the interest of showing off his mansion – which serves as an obvious sign to outsiders of his wealth and socioeconomic status – and his intentions are made clear when the venue for tea is scheduled such that Daisy might “see his house […] right next door” (84).¹ When the date arrives, his confidence soars when she exclaims, “That huge place there? […] I love it, but I don’t see how you could live there all alone” (95–6).¹ Their affair is rekindled shortly thereafter, seemingly due to the impact his possessions had on the impressionable Daisy, and his theory of her class-based endearment is confirmed.

The affluent East Coast culture within which we meet our heroes is one where appearances really do count for everything. From Tom and Daisy’s excessive taste in jewelry to Gatsby’s father’s “pride in his son and his son’s possessions” (180),¹ the entire society is centered around not directly wealth but upon indicators of wealth, on the sports-cars and mansions and women riding on fortune’s coattails. Gatsby’s struggle to overcome Tom and become the sole target of Daisy’s attraction, even if he himself considers it a primarily romantic endeavor, must also concern the sign-exchange of marrying a living, breathing commodity like the “gold-digging” Daisy Buchanan. For in order to attract and maintain her attention, he must situate himself at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.