Money is the Root of all Evil

The final cliché we are faced with states that money is the root of all evil. The wealthiest characters in The Great Gatsby prove to also be the most devious and deceitful.

Very little is mentioned in the novel as to how Gatsby became an overnight millionaire. Very little is known about the man in general, except for a rumor claiming that he is a bootlegger. However, no one questions the origins of his wealth as long as the booze continues to freely flow. That is until Tom, angered by Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy, confronts him, “I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were...He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t wrong” (Fitzgerald, 284-285). Gatsby’s strong desire of wealth leads him to acquire money through criminal activity, revealing his deceitful character.

Tom and Daisy being born into money creates two truly detestable characters, especially Tom, who has power over all other characters in the novel. He abuses Daisy and Myrtle, bullies Wilson and eventually frames Gatsby for the murder of Myrtle, which costs Gatsby his life. Nick states, “I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made...” (Fitzgerald, 136-145). Tom and Daisy’s behaviour shows that money can buy the ability to live in a world without consequences, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them.

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad” (Thomas, 35). The injustice between criminal acts of those who come from wealth and those who do not is as much of an issue of inequality in today’s world as it was in the 1920s. The most recently, publicly observed example of which being the O.J. Simpsons trial for the alleged murder of his ex wife, Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman. Regardless of whether or not he was guilty, this trial clearly demonstrated that class overpowers race in the criminal justice system. Spending an estimated five million dollars on his “dream team” of defence lawyers, O.J. Simpson escaped the death penalty by a mile (Wright, The Crime of Being Poor).