Consumed by Desire The Great Gatsby and the Allure of Wealth.

Joanna Makowska
Oct 27
5 min read

The Roaring Consumption

The 1920s were a decade of glitter and excess, an age of jazz, dancing, and newfound freedom. After the First World War, America was booming. Factories produced more than ever, cities grew, and people believed there were no limits to success. It was a time when wealth became a symbol of happiness, and consumerism turned into a new religion. The more you owned, the more you were. This was the age of the “American Dream,” when everyone wanted to be someone greater, richer, brighter. Yet beneath the glitter ran a thin vein of anxiety: by 1929 the market would crack, and the Great Depression would expose how fragile that prosperity had been.

The Consumption of Identity

My English teacher once told me to stop and think at the book a little longer, not to just read it for reading’s sake, but to read it to learn, to experience something new. When I first opened The Great Gatsby, I did it because I had to. I saw only a story about rich people living their greatest times.

And then I looked closer. I realized this book isn’t just about love or tragedy, it’s about consumption. A man who doesn’t merely desire wealth but believes it can consume his past and fabricate his future. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby turns the glittering Roaring Twenties into a mirror reflecting greed, illusion, and loneliness. Everyone seems rich; everything gleams like Art Deco glass. But behind that shine lies something cold. Gatsby’s legendary parties become the epicenter of the novel’s consumerist world, orchestras, buffets, a “sea of champagne.” Yet this consumption is hollow. Guests attend not out of friendship but for the allure of free luxury. Gatsby himself is the ultimate consumer; he does not join the party, he orchestrates it. He consumes people and moments as materials for his dream: a new identity dazzling enough to win Daisy Buchanan. His parties are not for joy but for show, a desperate signal fire lit to guide one person home.

In a world where money defines worth, Gatsby treats identity as something that can be purchased, repackaged, and displayed. He consumes luxury the way others consume food, endlessly, hoping it will fill a deeper emptiness. Every silk shirt, every golden accessory, and every imported object in his mansion serves a single purpose: to erase the memory of James Gatz, the poor boy from North Dakota, and replace him with “Jay Gatsby,” a man who belongs among the rich.

“The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God - a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that - and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was Faithful to the end.”

Yet this transformation is only surface-deep. When Daisy cries over his “beautiful shirts,” it is not love she feels but the emotional power of material beauty, a reaction to objects, not to the man who owns them.

He is consistently associated with yellow, the shade of fake gold. His car, his tie, his possessions scream of a new, brash wealth that, no matter how vast, can never replicate the quiet, inherited authority of Tom Buchanan's "old gold." This chromatic distinction marks him as a permanent outsider; he can consume the trappings of the elite, but he can never consume the lineage that makes them "real."

Shaw, Jasper. The Great Gatsby. 16 Aug. 2016, www.behance.net/gallery/41737707/THE-GREAT-GATSBY/modules/251750761. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en.

Gatsby’s wealth becomes his disguise, and in wearing it, he loses touch with who he is. His identity, built from the fragments of what society admires, collapses as soon as it is no longer admired. Fitzgerald shows that in the age of consumerism, even the self can be bought and therefore, easily spent. But above all, it is the green light that captures the essence of this consumed identity. Green is the color of greed and envy, fitting for his yearning for a world that will never accept him. Yet, it is also the color of life, growth, and vital hope. This duality is key. The green light is not merely a symbol of material desire; it is the very engine of Gatsby’s being. It represents the "orgastic future" he believed he could purchase, the life and love he constructed his entire existence to achieve.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, bore back ceaselessly into the past."

The Consumption of Morality

In the end, his tragedy is that the green light, the ultimate object of his consumption, was a mirage. Once grasped, it proved to have no substance. Gatsby’s entire life revolves around a single, grand, yet deeply flawed ideal. His pursuit of wealth is never for its own sake; it is a means to win back Daisy, whom he has turned into a symbol of beauty, grace, and ultimate happiness. This hope, though delusional, gives his life purpose. He still believes in the promise of a better tomorrow. In contrast, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, live without any such idealism. Their lives are built on comfort and preservation, not pursuit. They don’t chase dreams; they consume them. Tom’s only goal is to keep his power and prejudice; Daisy’s is to remain safe in her world of luxury; Jordan drifts through life with detached boredom. Where Gatsby is full of romantic energy, they are drained of feeling. Nick admires Gatsby because he alone has what the others lack - a “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” a capacity for wonder that makes him both vulnerable and noble. The others are empty, careless, and incapable of awe. As Nick observes after Gatsby’s death, they “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness.” Myrtle’s death, caused by Daisy’s careless driving, is the ultimate price of this carelessness. Nobody takes responsibility. Gatsby dies for someone else’s guilt, while the Buchanans retreat into their money, untouched. Almost no one comes to Gatsby’s funeral - only Nick, Gatsby’s father, and the man known as Owl Eyes. Even Gatsby, for all his romantic idealism, manipulates the law and sells alcohol during Prohibition, believing that the end justifies the means. Jordan cheats in golf, showing that dishonesty is not limited to the world of business or crime but is part of everyday life.

It is not wealth itself that destroys people, but the loss of wonder, honesty, and responsibility that comes when wealth becomes the only dream left.