F.

Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby has survived almost ninety

years as one of the greatest novels in American history. Set in the 1920’s, the story, told

from the perspective of Nick Carraway, details the reawakening of love between his

friend Jay Gatsby and cousin Daisy Buchanan, former lovers who had not seen each other

for five years. Once Gatsby convinces Nick to bring the two together, Daisy begins to

weigh the luxurious, familiar lifestyle she currently leads with her husband, the

controlling alpha male Tom Buchanan against the possibility of returning to a former

love who offers her a fancy, if unfamiliar life, and the prospect of more successful love.

The story is woven through with various motifs which deep themes about different

aspects of life, such as happiness, society, gender, and wealth, motifs that greatly enhance

the beauty of the novel by giving it a purpose, a message to relate. One such motif is

gold, which appears sparingly throughout the book, but always very deliberately and

explores the theme of happiness, and its relation to love and luxury. The varied uses of

gold develop the theme that wealth and luxury are not enough to make a person happy

and that genuine happiness can only come with true love and loyalty.

In early chapters of The Great Gatsby, the gold motif illuminates superficial

happiness in life in the society of the novel by describing luxury, wealth, and

ladylikeness, things people view as causes for felicity, but more often than not are not

enough for true joy. Upon arriving in New York, hoping to make a fortune by investing,

and establishes gold as a fundamental part of wealth when remarks that he “bought a

dozen volumes on banking and credit” that “stood on my shelf in red and gold like new

money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and

Morgan and Maecenas knew” (4). Through the allusions to “Midas and Morgan and
Maecenas,” three extremely wealthy men throughout history, the gold motif establishes

itself in connection to wealth, and the prospect of learning exclusive “shining” formulas

of these men suggests a correlation between wealth and happiness (4). The gold motif

reinforces the link between wealth and happiness when Nick visits his cousin Daisy and

her husband Tom’s house and, marveling at the splendid mansion, notes “a line of French

windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon”

(6). French windows are considered a luxury, and the gold motif further glorifies this

wealthy picture with the image of “glowing,” which gives the impression of a house

overflowing with money, while the comfortable “warm windy afternoon” demonstrates

the pleasure borne from this luxury. By painting the image of a grand house with content

occupants, the gold motif reinforces the interrelation between money and happiness. The

gold motif once again demonstrates this correlation when Nick detail’s Gatsby's typical

party by describing the “glistening hors d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against

salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold” (40).

Nick describes excess food, and by linking “gold” and “bewitched,” the gold motif gives

the impression that money comes hand in hand with the excess. All this is very positive,

and seems very jovial, apparently happy, once again characterizing money and happiness

as a pair. The gold motif continues to develop the bond between happiness and wealth by

portraying ladylikeness as a cause for happiness. At one of Gatsby’s party, Nick describe

how he and Jordan Baker “sauntered around the garden” with her “slender golden arm

resting in mine” (43). By linking “sauntered,” and the happy connotation that follows it to

Jordan’s “slender golden arm” the gold motif associates ladylikeness--which often

accompanies money--with happiness, further promoting the alliance between money and
joy (43). “Slender” and “golden” when applied to an arm work together to give an idea of

beauty and so by describing, not a person’s character, but their outer shell, the gold motif

begins to foreshadow the possibility that money and luxury are not enough to make a

person truly happy. The gold motif once again allies superficial happiness with

ladylikeness when Nick and Jordan drive together and Nick once again references

“Jordan’s golden shoulder,” and the motif indicates happiness with the gold when Nick

“asked her to dinner” (79). The gold motif revisits its exploration of superficial

happiness in a flashback to Daisy as a younger woman. As Gatsby describes a younger

Daisy, he recalls parties where “a hundred pairs of gold and silver slippers shuffled the

shining dust” (151). Back in this time when gold still meant artificially happiness, the

gold motif further accentuates the correlation between extravagance and happiness

through the connection of fancy shoes to a jovial activity such as dancing. Even the dust,

normally a symbol of gloom, is “shining” (151). The gold motif uses the contrast of

luxurious, gold shoes, dancing, and “shining dust” (151) to highlight money as a cause of

happiness.

From the moment Gatsby sees Daisy for the first time in five years, the gold motif

shifts from connecting gold to happiness to exploring the possibility that love is

necessary for true happiness. The motif begins this transition when Gatsby arrives to see

Daisy at Nick’s house “in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie” (84). The

gold motif associates gold with the newly revived relationship between Gatsby and

Daisy, introducing love to the previous theme of happiness, and suggesting love is a true

source of happiness. The gold motif links happiness more strongly to love when Daisy,

Nick and Gatsby walk in Gatsby’s garden shortly after Gatsby and Daisy have a very
emotional conversation and Daisy enjoys “the pale gold odor of the kiss-me-at-the-gate”

(90). By connecting Daisy’s enjoyment with gold while walking with Gatsby, the gold

motif alludes to the correlation between love and joy, which is further reinforced by the

reference to gold in connection to a “kiss-me-at-the-gate,” whose name suggest an

cheerful, happy opening with the word “gate” and love through “kiss” (90). The gold

motif further points to an alliance between joy and love when Daisy and Nick see

Gatsby’s bedroom, and Nick notes that it is the “simplest room” in the house minus the

“toilet set of pure dull gold” (91). The bedroom is the most personal room of a house, and

by simplifying it, the author demonstrates that Gatsby is not a fundamentally lavish man,

but is happiest with simplicity. The one luxury is taken for a toilet set, so he can maintain

his appearance and impress Daisy, the woman he loves. Upon leaving Gatsby’s house,

Nick notes “ pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea” (94). By associating

with pink, the color of ardor, the gold motif solidifies its junction with love. Furthermore,

“golden billow” describes storm, personal conflict. The gold motif highlights the

conjunction between love and happiness as people question relationships and themselves

and gold represents the change from old to new, from loveless to love, unhappy to happy.

Between the first party Daisy and Tom attend at Gatsby’s house to the first time

Gatsby sets foot in their house, the gold motif progresses from representing a nervous

love to full blown love and the freedom that comes with true love, though it retains

vestiges of its previous meanings. Attending a party at Gatsby’s house for the first time,

Daisy galvanizes Tom to “go ahead” and meet people, adding pleasantly that “if you

want to take down any addresses, here’s my little gold pencil” (105). As Daisy

encourages separation between her and Tom, she paves the way for Gatsby. The gold
motif connects love to joy by setting Daisy free to love Gatsby, and this change is what

could allow her to be truly happy. As she becomes bolder, the luxury of a “little gold

pencil” (105) remains to bind the gold motif to its representation of the correlation

between money and happiness, but overall the gold motif joins a bold love and happiness

and reinforces the theme that love is necessary to achieve joy. The gold motif continues

to promote a fully fledged love as the source of happiness when Gatsby visits Daisy’s

house for the first time. Watching Gatsby, Nick observes that Daisy’s voice “was full of

money” and that Gatsby regarded her as a “kings daughter, the golden girl” (120). Gatsby

does not seem to care about any of the artificialness associated with money, but allows

his love for Daisy and the princess-like “golden girl” (120) vision trump the rest of the

thought. He sees Daisy as perfect, a princess, and loves her. Although the images of a

princess and “golden girl” (120) imply wealth and luxury, when Gatsby overlooks those

connotations in favor of his love for Daisy, the gold motif bolsters its claim that full-scale

love is the source of joy.

After Daisy disappears from Gatsby’s life, the gold motif changes drastically,

shifting between two mentions from images of fierce love to one of hopeless

abandonment. The gold motif solidifies necessity of love to attain happiness in its one

mention after Daisy disappears from Gatsby's life and Gatsby dies. Standing in Gatsby’s

house mere hours after the body was discovered, Nick notes that the Long Island dawn

was “filling the house with gray-turning, gold-turning light” (152). The gold motif

demonstrates a correlation between loss of happiness and loss of love by shadowing itself

with a parallel between gold and grey. Even leaves, usually green, colorful, happy, are

“blue,” a color that connotes a sad mournfulness and “shadows” are everywhere, casting
a gloom and a general air of depression and loss (152). Birds are not singling joyfully, but

instead are adding to the despair by appearing “ghostly” (152). Through mournful

images, the gold motif reveals that before his death, Gatsby was so madly in love with

Daisy that everything was wrong without her. Gatsby still had his fancy house and his

fortune, but money and luxury were not enough to bring him joy. He needed love to be

happy, evidencing the gold motif’s claim that love is requisite for happiness.

Before the story even begins, the gold motif appears in the preface,

foreshadowing its own journey of changing meanings, applications, and images. The

preface is a poem that instructs the reader to “wear the gold hat” to catch the eye of a

loved one, until she “must have” the “lover, gold hatted” (preface). At the beginning of

the novel, gold symbolizes superficial happiness, wealth, luxury, and ladylikeness. This

poem, the first mention of gold, foreshadows a shift in meaning to a more personal,

emotional, and love-orienting meaning. It is a transition away from the one-mold-fits-all

view in which all society has the same notion of these signs of riches, which is exactly

how the motif behaved. Through the novel, the gold motif underwent the exact transition

that the preface predicted. The gold motif creates a ligature between richness and felicity

the first time Nick sees Tom and Daisy’s fancy house, he immediately notices “a line of

French windows” illuminated “with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy

afternoon” (6). In this description, the motif gold serves to associate gold with the

magnificence of a luxurious house, and by connecting the luxury to a “warm windy

afternoon” (6) establishes extravagance as an apparent source of joviality. The gold motif

grows into developing a more emotional correlation between joy and love during a walk

in Gatsby’s garden when Daisy stops to appreciate “the pale gold odor of the kiss-me-at-
the-gate” (90). The gold motif suggests a connection between love and gold by appearing

as Daisy enjoys a walk with Gatsby, who loves her and whom she once loved. In this

appearance, the gold motif comes to symbolize the opening of love and begins to develop

the theme that love is necessary for true happiness.

The gold motif makes the necessity of love for happiness more apparent after

Daisy disappears with Tom, abandoning Gatsby, who is then murdered. Looking

Gatsby’s window Nick observes that dawn was “filling the house with gray-turning,

gold-turning light,” completing the mage of gloom with the “shadow of a tree” and

“ghostly birds” that “sing among the blue leaves.” (152) The gold motif’s one appearance

after Daisy’s disappearance and Gatsby’s death deepens the connection between love and

happiness by painting a gloomy, depressing image after the primary romance of the story

is so brutally shattered. All the luxury in the house could not protect Gatsby from the

gloom that overcame him once his love left, demonstrating the need for love to achieve

beatitude.

VI. Conclusion
a. In the conclusion I am going to explore how the meaning of gold in society at that
time relates to gold in this story—how the two meanings are similar, how they are
different, and how they shed light on each other.
NO MORE THAN 4 SENTENCES ABOUT WHY IT ALL
MATTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!