Rot and Glitz - Old Money in the Great Gatsby

When you think of The Great Gatsby, whether the novel or the movie, the first images that come to mind are sparkling champagne glasses, orchestras under shimmering lights, and luxurious parties. But behind the glamour and the roar of the Jazz Age setting constructed by its author F. Scott Fizgerald, lay a world colder, sharper, and far more exclusive: the world of Old Money, a locked door behind which the most exclusive of individuals, by wealth and social status, were permitted to enter.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, carefully sets up the characters in two different worlds along the Long Island Goald Coast. The East Egg, with its solemn mansions and quiet dignity, hosted families of Old Money-possessing generations of inherited wealth, sophisticated manners, and social networks from ancestors that money alone could not buy. The West Egg, by contrast, lived the New Money like Jay Gastby, the titular protagonist. People who live in the West Egg were those whose fortunes were made quickly, whose flaunting of their wealth remained looked down upon by the East Egg as vulgarity. The divide was not just physical, acting as an important wall between societies in the novel. This hierarchy is represented by characters on either side of the divide-with the protagonist Gatsby symbolizing the West Egg, and ultimate antagonists Tom and Daisy Buchanan representing the East Egg. Gatsby can build a mansion, host luxurious parties, and buy expensive cars, but he cannot cross the border and join the East Egg society. 

Tom and Daisy Buchanan are the clearest symbols of old money within the novel. They seem untouchable and dignified on the outside, but are careless, snobbish, and hypocritical on the inside. Tom parades his infidelity, yet mocks Gatsby’s morality. Daisy drifts between Gatsby and Tom, never fully committing, only to retreat into her comfortable world when tragedy strikes. The moment that shows the old money’s hypocrisy is after Myrtle’s death, Gatsby takes the blame to protect Daisy, yet she and Tom vanish into their wealth, leaving others to clean up the wreckage. Daisy may be Gatsby’s lover, but she represents something far greater-stability, status, and a sense of belonging in the world of East Egg. To Gatsby, she isn’t just a person. She’s the embodiment of everything he’s spent his life chasing. Gatsby strongly desires to become wealthy and become ‘enough’ for Daisy, but no matter how grand his mansion is or extravagant his parties are, he can never cross the invisible boundary separating inherited privilege from self-made fortune. And it is not only Daisy that Gatsby cannot reach. Fitzgerald presents Daisy as both the woman he loves and the dream he can never truly reach-the world of Old Money that forever stays just out of his grasp. The Old Money society is not simply exclusive, but it is impenetrable. And in the end, it is Gatsby-who did not make it to the Old Money society-who pays the ultimate price.

Although Fitzgerald wrote his novel a century ago, the critique of old money is still present today. Wealth may look attractive and fancy from the outside, but it can also be a fortress, built not just on dollars but on generations of unspoken privilege. The Great Gatsby reminds us that money alone cannot buy belonging, and that the glittering surface of privilege often hides a hollowness beneath.