Adis Terzic
English
Jennings
2/19/14
Thorstein Veblen and Great Gatsby
In Ray Canterbury’s Thorstein Veblen and The Great Gatsby, Canterbury argues that F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s world-renowned novel wasn’t something unprecedented in its time and that
Fitzgerald actually drew inspiration and ideas from economist Thorstein Veblen and his work
Theories of the Leisure Class. Canterbury establishes that Fitzgerald and his astute satire was not
totally original as Veblen was the first of his time to offer criticism that Social Darwinism
doesn’t cause progress but regress. Veblen was the first to satirize the rich and expose their
social corruption and false values. Fitzgerald’s Gatsby parallels Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure
Class and utilizes some of the same devices such as satire and irony to capture the waste and
corruption of the rich. First, Canterbury analyzes Gatsby and his characters. He is the epitome of
waste and immaturity that Veblen harped on. Also he uses Daisy as a parallel to the materialism
centered around the “American Dream’ and the quest for affluence. Lastly, Canterbury stated
that Gatsby was a book that astutely captured the rich using many different tools. Like Veblen,
Fitzgerald used multiple writing tools such as satire, irony, and realism to expose the belief that
money is a fix-all. Cabterbury puts forth a well-structured argument that I qualify as I believe his
argument is too far-fetched. The problem is that Canterbury puts too much emphasis on certain
small aspects of the book and interprets other symbols and aspects of the book incorrectly, but I
can see his viewpoint and do believe that Gatsby has some parallels to Veblen’s Theories of the
Leisure Class, but I don’t believe it had a profound influence on Fitzgerald.
The first claim Canterbury makes, I can whole heartedly agree with. He tries to explain
how Gatsby is the epitome of waste and false values. That is clear. Gatsby at his core flaunts his
nouveau rich to gain attention, namely from Daisy. He doesn’t know how to act rich and tries to
show others how great he is through his wealth, yet the decadence and waste is unnecessary. He
would never get Daisy because he is too vulgar, gaudy, lacks a sense of tradition, and doesn’t
know how to act rich. Gatsby was a perfect example of a newly rich man in the Gilded Age.
Veblen believed that the emulation of the rich was what many attempted to do, even though this
praise of the rich was unnecessary and unwarranted. Pecuniary emulation was one of the keys of
the Gilded Age and economics. Gatsby tried to implement his purchase power to get Daisy, but
she was not for sale, and this was one of the main things Veblen had harped on. The rich had
believed that money was a fix all, and the “American Dream” of affluence was a false belief and
resulted only in corruption. This is perfectly cited when Canterbury analyzes Gatsby’s death. He
believed Gatsby dies because if his chief sin: imitation. He tried to flaunt his wealth and emulate
the established d rich to acquire Daisy and all this led to George Wilson killing him because of
his wives death. It was a domino effect.
Canterbury then goes on to use Daisy as another example of decadence and false values
that Veblen had already analyzed. Canterbury believed Daisy was a materialistic character only
motivated by money and items if monetary values. That is a spot-on analysis as she was with
Tom because of his money and was motivated through her own personal greed. As Canterbury
stated, she even started crying when she saw Gatsby’s shirts. Veblen even explored women is his
Theories of the Leisure Class. Women were the trophies of the house, “chief ornaments” yet they
were the “abused class in TLC”. This is also clearly seen in Gatsby and this is a claim I can agree
with. In Gatsby, the story was centered on a female, Daisy. She was the trophy Gatsby was
trying to win over from Tom and was the main conflict in the book and resulted in Gatsby’s
death. Along with that women were the abused class, they weren’t really respected. Tom
blatantly cheated on Daisy and didn’t care, and then when it came to her mistress he had no
respect for her either as he broke her nose violently.
Lastly what Gatsby and Theories of the Leisure Class have in common are their view of
the corruption of the “American Dream” centered solely on affluence. Gatsby captured the
corruption and false values of the rich through satire, irony and realism that Veblen had captured
through his satire and unorthodox economist take on the rich. What Veblen stresses is that the
rich try to do certain things to set them apart from the other classes. What the rich do is perform
taboo acts such as choice articles of clothes, certain foods, and even alcohol. This is what
separates the leisure class and prevents lower classes from emulating. This was something
Gatsby did to set himself apart from the rest of the newly rich class. He would thorw crazy
parties, dress in pink vulgar suits with his gaudy cream olcore dcar, and then he would drink
alcohol, something to set himself apart from the neavaeu rich and make him appear as part of the
established wealth, something to set him apart so he is elite, high class. This ultimately didn’t
work but it is a Veblenian idea, present in a Fitzgerlad novel.
Canterbury presents a well-strucutred argument that offers a very well-suppoerted claim.
The only flaw is that it’s very circumstantial. There are apralles to Veblen’s Theeoiry of the
Leisure Class, but there isn’t any solid evidence. Fitzgerald never documented any ideas he got
from him, he documented how he got ideas from Karl Marx, but not Veblen. Then again with
Veblen, their ideas were very similar, Fitzgerald didn’t want to risk any claim of unoriginality, or
he could’ve been influenced by Veblen but he didn’t want to claim it because he had wanted to
be original. That is why F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t necessarily inspired by the ideas of Thorstein
Veblen, but the great Gatsby parallels Veblen’s theories of the Leisure Class, both through their
astute analysis of the corruption, materialism, and false values of the rich and their obsession that
money fixes all, when it doeons.t