Gatsby expansion on two themes

One of the major themes in the movie is the characterisation of the rich. The rich are personified by Daisy and Tom Buchanan. In the movie the rich are characterised as devoid of geniune love or emotion. We see this playing out with Daisy who although she initially seems to "love" Gatsby, when things go wrong and he dies she doesn't come to his funeral or even shed a tear. Tom similarly shows no grief when Myrtle dies. Following this characterisation we also see, how they use there money to absolve them of all responsibility. Tom says he will give George Wilson his car to make up for sleeping with Georges wife. I suppose this is similar to rich people today hiring a team of the best lawyers to exonerate them from any cases. Furthermore we are shown the rich only really care about their money and appearances. Interestingly we see this with Daisy as she really responds to Gatsby after seeing his massive mansion and reacted most positively when he throws all the latest fashion in the air and she looks positively thrilled.

Another major theme for the conflict between the newly rich and old more aristocratic rich. Gatsby represents the new rich as we find out through the film as lad he was poor. Tom Buchanan represented the old rich. The conflict T Buchanan vs Gatsby, old rich vs new rich plays out subtly at first but then explodes into the open throughout the film. The first subtle taste of it is Toms comments about Jay Gatsby calling him a 'bootlegger' which means he's thinks Gatsby smuggling. This explodes with Tom shouting out at a restaurant that he's discovered Gatsby is smuggling alcohol into his drug stores and selling it. Finally they contrast with ideals Gatsby believes in his true love for Daisy and Tom seems to be more with the old ideas of aristocrats being able to do what they want and in the right 'breeding.'