When elite members of society are blessed with the opportunity of having fancy cars, great big beautiful mansions, and all the money they could possibly ever need, they create a dangerous and powerful society. This is a prominent issue that is present clearly within F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, where the majority of the elite upper society characters of Long Island are far more concerned with what possessions and privileges they possess, rather than caring and maintaining their personal relationships. Soon they face unbearable secrets, shocking new realizations, and sudden deaths. By sophistically intertwining growing social issues present in today's society as well as in the 1920's; Fitzgerald is able to show how these particular issues have immense amounts of influence on how society glamorizes materialism, binge drinking, and the interactions between society’s social classes. The definition of materialism is: a way of thinking that gives too much importance to material possessions rather than to spiritual or intellectual things, or from a philosophy perspective: the belief that only material things exist (Webster Dictionary). This particular issue is one that continuously presents itself throughout Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. The story is set in the 1920's, also known as the "Jazz Age," when a young Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, decides to move to Long Island, NY to become a bondsman. While Nick moves to the less-elite but not too shabby West Egg part of Long Island, his second cousin Daisy Buchanan and her aggressive husband Tom, live on the Fashionable East Egg part of town, where members of the upper class society tend to live. On the day Tom Buchanan invites Nike to have dinner at his home, Nick describes to his readers Tom’s character and past as "...enormously wealthy...but he'd left Chicago (his former home) and cam [come] East in a fashion that rather took your breath away..."(Fitzgerald 6). From the description of Tom’s background, it becomes vividly clear that he is a man with money, but what he chooses to secretly spend it on, reveals itself overtime. Money is a privilege many young men are granted with, past down from older generations, and overtime the term of having "Old Money” begins to be one that many wealthy young men obtain. Men were not the only ones consumed with the idea of money, and the materialistic advantages that came with it. Many fathers would only marry their daughter off to young men with "wealthy families" in order to insure their daughter is exposed to all the wealth possible. This idea of needing to have the biggest mansion or elaborate cars becomes a huge issue because it eventually came down to what exactly is one doing in order to have that money. Another prime example of how people act and think when they have money to waste is when Nick slyly comments on Gatsby house, as he sees that, "The [your] place looks like the World’s Fair" (82). This comment made by Nick clearly alludes to the simple fact that Gatsby is throwing another extravagant party, in the high hopes that it will finally attract his long lost love, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby firmly believes that all his wealth will speak for itself when he finally wins her back. He believes this because she originally broke up with him five years prior due to his lack of wealth. In today’s day and age, the upper class elites with the most money are considered to be the happiest, wealthy and often times think of themselves as superior to the rest of society, yet are they truly happy. What defines happiness, is it all the materialist items in the world, or is it something more than just; seasonal tickets to fancy ski resorts, fancy cars or even a personal driver? The answer is indefinably unknown, for it is surely different for everyone. Materialism is an issue that society has faced for decades. Today its seems that a curtain has come up in front of our eyes, and we only see a world full of perfect, when in reality, that world will never exists. However, here is where many losses it. Instead of opening up one’s eyes and see reality as a blinding light, many continue through life with their eyes tightly shut, and with no sense of what has become their dream, and what is truly their reality. A study done by Steve Taylor with Psychology Today, states that “There is no correlation between wealth and happiness” (Taylor). This further supports the idea of people walking through life with their eyes shut. They believe that they are truly happy, but this is not a reality for them, and in this dream there is no such thing as happiness, just an idea of what one wants it to be. Once the basic material needs are satisfied, then here is where the curtain slowly begins to fall. Taylor goes on to say that, “extremely ric