CONNECTION TO THE GREAT GATSBY
The Automobile Motif
The automobile is a major motif that makes a regular appearance in the story.
The automobile has always been a kind of status symbol in the United States. Expensive cars are associated with the possession of great wealth. Gatsby's car is described as the epitome of wealth. His reason for buying the car is to convey his material success and newfound prosperity. The fact that his car is yellow instead of the uniform black of the period stresses the idea that he is absorbed with the preoccupation of displaying his material wealth to gain the acceptance of Daisy, the object of his long quest. This is the vehicle that kills Myrtle and indirectly leads to Gatsby's own death. The automobile is stressed again and again throughout the story and is used in the end, with the death of Myrtle, to prove that a dream based on
materialism alone will in the end be destructive.
Car Culture