Old vs. New Money

In the book, the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the term "old money vs. new money" as a way to contrast two different types of people. The people who live in East Egg, like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, are portrayed as the "old money" type of people. Unlike them, Gatsby and the people of West Egg are known as "new money". The definition between the both is pretty self explanatory, meaning that the old money people have been rich their whole life, and the new money people just recently became rich.

Throughout the story, we always hear people make remarks about the people known as new money and old money. Tom relates the the new money people as a bunch of bootleggers who just recently fell into a big load of money. He suspects that Gatsby is a bootlegger because he knew that he just earned his wealth, and he didn't grow up being very rich. Nick doesn't believe this because he admires Gatsby and he still thinks that he was related to very rich people from the past.

The way that F. Scott Fitzgerald talks about the old money people is that they are very stubborn, and have no morals. They are very selfish people, and they don't care for anybody else except their own wealth and riches. These are the people who have been raised by rich families and they will constantly be rich through their whole life. They have no idea what it means to actually work for money and everything is handed to them. There is a big difference between the old money and the new money people. The way they earned their money and the way they spend it is what distinguishes them.