"He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.” (Fitzgerald 97-98)
This is the point where Daisy and Gatsby finally meet and Gatsby takes Daisy into his house to show her how wealthy he is now. He shows her his wealth because be believes they could be together now because, “rich girls don’t marry poor boys” and now he is no longer poor. This passage shows Daisy crying about the beauty of his wealth as well as displaying her materialism.
Seeing the immense display of wealth, displayed by his European shirts, she begins to cry. This part of the novel demonstrates her superficiality and shallowness and also shows the superficiality and materialism of the time. This quote portrays one of the significant and major themes in the novel, wealth vs. power. Gatsby knows that wealth will win Daisy back, and in that time wealth gets power. Knowing this, Gatsby goes to the extremes to become wealthy which in the future gives him power as well. This quote plays a significant role in the novel because it establishes that wealth does give power since Gatsby does win Daisy with his wealth.
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