Themes of Materialism in American Literature

People like to decorate themselves with nice clothes and want to look good. However, people can become so obsessed about what other people are wearing and how their clothes reflect their social status. This shows illustrates what American materialism about. People like to judge others by the outside figure, and they decide who that person is by how he or she appears to them. But how can a person be judged by what he is wearing? It is a very wrong perspective, sometimes it could fool people, and it could also be rude to others. People also believe a false belief that wearing expensive clothes could raise up their social status. However, if they go beyond their place, their lavish clothes will give infamous reputation about their exceeded self-conceit.

Myrtle in The Great Gatsby, judges her husband by what he is wearing. Even though later on she feels remorseful about what she used to think and judge about her husband, she starts to like Tom again only because of his appearance. Myrtle is a good example of American materialism, because she shows why it is wrong to judge people by looking their superficial appearance. Firstly when she marries, she makes a wrong decision because of her wrong American materialism. Secondly she wants to show off her clothes while people pay little attention on her, which shows how useless showing off looks and pretending what she wants to be.

What is inside is much more important than is shown only on the outside. The outside image people want to portray maybe lasts only a few years. However, the inside traits are always developing and growing if people have desire it. Then it will remain forever stoic unlike the the fleeting trends of superficial images. People need to know the importance of seeing ther person inside the shell, and how useless it is to judge people soley by their appearancess