‘Characters in pursuit of money lie at the heart of much American literature.’ By comparing The Great Gatsby with at least one other text prescribed for this topic, discuss how far you agree with this view.

[Question sourced from OCR past paper, June 2017, as a relevant example of A Level English Literature questions.]In F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, 'The Great Gatsby', and Edith Wharton's 1920 serial novel 'The Age of Innocence', the characters' relation to money, and their identity within America, are pivotal to the plot. However, the pursuit of money, as the question posits, is not always the relationship these characters have to financial matters. In this answer, I shall outline the ways in which both authors refer to the pursuit and acquisition of money, their position within the history of the 'Roaring Twenties', and determine whether or not it characters pursuing money lie at the heart of American literature.The reason people have for obtaining money, more often than not, is to acquire it, and in doing so, become rich. As such, any novel about the pursuit of money must contrast the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. 'The Great Gatsby' starts the novel with an intent of comparing the two, and the effect this has on society. Nick Carraway, a privileged Yale graduate, opens the novel with advice from his father, that he should not criticise people as not all in the world have received "the advantages that you've had". Nick insists his ability to take on this advice, describing himself as a man who can "reserve all judgements", while in the same breath revealing himself as an unreliable hypocrite by dismissing some people who open up to him as "veteran bores". Financial privilege, for Carraway, has ensured his ability to be successful while remaining naive and incapable. This is contrasted within the novel with the eponymous Gatsby, whose striving and often duplicitous desperation is summed up by the naive Carraway as making him "the single most hopeful man I've ever met". For the characters of 'The Great Gatsby', financial privilege means a life at leisure, and often, a life lived in ignorance. Anyone seeking to raise themselves to the same level, as Gatsby is, must achieve this aim through exhaustive effort that threatens to undermine their morality.