The Great Gatsby Car Analysis

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Roaring Engines: Cars and Driving in The Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, different characters’ development and relationships are illustrated through their cars and their driving styles. Also, the type of vehicle that the character uses also tells the reader about their personality or nature. In all, there are cars and automobiles, trains, taxi cabs, and horses used throughout the novel. Fitzgerald puts many subtle things in the novel that tell us about the booming time the book is taking place - as well as alluding to the American Dream concept. Nick describes the Queensborough Bridge in passing, but shows the immense growth for Manhattan’s outer boroughs, especially Queens, thanks to the opening of the bridge. Nick …show more content…
In the American society the car is always seen as a symbol of status - and Gatsby is doing everything in his power to achieve a front illustrating a certain status. Gatsby has a gorgeous car “... that is so peculiarly American…” (64). Nick rides next him. Cheerfully, Gatsby invites him to lunch. (pattern 13) There was so much detail in Nick’s description that it tells us that Gatsby’s car would make anyone’s head turn - and Gatsby knows that too. “It’s pretty isn’t it, old sport!” (64). Nick describes the appearance of the car before he describes Gatsby. Gatsby intended it to be that way, so that he is able to hide in plain sight. Not literally, but in the way people think of him - when they think of Gatsby, they think of the gorgeous car. “It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns” (64). The improvident style shows Gatsby’s materialism just like his competitor Tom Buchanan. The difference is when it comes to the cars, he is doing everything solely for one person, Daisy Buchanan. While we see the progression or change of Tom’s materialism, we don’t see a change of focus from Gatsby. The single purpose of everything he has done or has is to get and woa Daisy. His car is just a part of his plan. Gatsby’s main intentions with his car is to stand …show more content…
Before, Tom has been taking advantage of his stable marriage, living lavishly, hardly working. But leading up to her death, he had to fight for Daisy, and genuinely expressed his eternal and constant love for her. An important thing to remember is the definition of love - meaning that someone can love multiple people. For instance Tom loves Daisy and Myrtle, Daisy loves Tom and Gatsby. With Myrtle out of the picture, Tom goes running back to Daisy, we learn that Daisy is fully committed now to Tom, and Gatsby has accepted that he has lost
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