This essay examines F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby through the theoretical framework of Karl Marx's critique of capitalism. Drawing on Marx's argument that capitalist production ultimately benefits a wealthy elite at the expense of the laboring majority, the essay interprets key characters and symbols — including Daisy Buchanan's money-laden voice and Gatsby's ostentatious automobile — as manifestations of materialism run amok. The analysis demonstrates how Fitzgerald's portrayal of 1920s American excess mirrors Marxist warnings about the socially and ethically corrosive effects of unchecked capitalist greed, foreshadowing the economic collapse of the Great Depression.
The paper exemplifies critical theory application: it introduces an external theoretical lens (Marxism), defines its key claims using a secondary source, and then reads primary-text passages through that lens. This structure — theory first, textual reading second — keeps the argument coherent and prevents the analysis from drifting into plot summary.
The essay opens with historical context establishing the 1920s economic backdrop, then introduces the Marxist framework via a quoted secondary source. Subsequent paragraphs each focus on a single textual element (Daisy, Gatsby himself, the automobile), connecting each to Marxist theory before closing with a brief historical reflection on the Great Depression as validation of Marx's warnings. The structure is linear and thesis-driven, suitable as a model for short analytical essays at the undergraduate introductory level.
In the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a new and unprecedented period of industriousness and growth. Within this period, its advancement as a production society saw one of its most torrid phases of expansion. But just as this era proved the economic merits of capitalism, it also began to reveal the considerable dangers that accompany the system. This dichotomy is captured best in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. In the title character and his surrounding culture, readers are given a compelling critique of the materialism and inequality that are the ultimate ends of capitalist greed. Approaching the text through the lens of social theorist Karl Marx, one comes face-to-face with the culturally, socially, and ethically destructive mores of unrestrained capitalism.
The discussion begins with a perspective offered by Marx. The architect of communist theory warned that in any production-based society, there is a fine line between the achievement of economic prosperity for the greater good and the exploitation of productive labor for the enrichment of the select few. Unfortunately, according to Marx, capitalism inherently benefits that select few at the expense of the laboring majority, with stultifying effects on social progress. As Trainer (2010) explains, "At first the relation between new forces of production and new relations of production is progressive or beneficial to society in general. Marx stressed the great increase in human welfare that economic growth under capitalism had brought. However, as time goes on the situation becomes less and less beneficial. The new social relations of production begin to hinder the full development and application of the new forces of production" (p. 1).
This suggests that, eventually, capitalist growth produces less in the way of broad economic progress and more in the way of individual acquisition for the wealthy elite. These wealthy elite drive the action and thematic impulses of The Great Gatsby, especially within the old-money society into which the self-made bootlegger attempts to gain acceptance.
Daisy is a particularly demonstrative figure — a idle socialite with tremendous personal wealth and little awareness of the society around her. Gatsby observes that Daisy's voice is "full of money," and Nick's characterization of this quality is telling: "I'd never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it" (Fitzgerald 120). The romanticizing of this quality speaks directly to what Marx would identify as the skewed values of the society depicted in Gatsby.
For Marx, figures like Daisy were the consequence of a production society gone amok. The importance of material production as a force for the advancement of civilization had, at this point in America's history, been supplanted by a senseless embrace of the superficial.
Certainly, Marx might make this very observation about the United States, perhaps then and now. And given that the world described by Fitzgerald would come crashing down with the emergence of the Great Depression only four years after the novel's publication, few could dispute the warnings offered by Marx.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. The Scribner Classic Library, 1925.
Trainer, T. "Marxist Theory: A Brief Introduction." Social Sciences, 2010.
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.