Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First two paragraphs]
At the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway reflects of his journey to the East: “this has been a story of the West” (184). Nick never explains exactly how this is the case, particularly odd since all the action takes place between Manhattan and Long Island. Nick’s hesitant explanation for this puzzling conclusion lies in the western origin of the central characters of the novel and their inability to adapt “to Eastern Life” (184). But the characters seem a part of, if not overshadowed by, the riotous world of West Egg. Only Tom Buchanan rejects this world from the outset, and he cannot settle down anywhere. The novel is about this social and cultural dynamic at the core of West Egg. And only with the last seventy years behind us can we understand how this novel dramatizes the enthusiastic push to new land and developing frontiers. West Egg to Gatsby offers all his dreams in one immense down payment. He becomes totally invested in his home, his furnishings, his car, and his clothes.
Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, picks up and runs with this desire to put stakes in the ground, build anew, and create a personal identity through commodities that fill and decorate the house. Wright’s previous title, SimCity, received criticism for privileging white middle-class values while marginalizing the concerns of lower classes, although the objective of the game was to create and improve an entire city. By adding sports arenas and parks to attract a higher class of people, yuppies, the player succeeded in raising property values and thus in collecting more taxes to build more arenas and airports to create a truly utopian city. The net effect of these improvements was to drive out the nameless poor and create an urbanity that would be home to a prosperous homogeneity. Since Will Wright launched The Sims in February 2000, it has become the world’s most successful PC game and has sold over 24 million units, including eight millions units of The Sims, its core product (). There are expansion units that add more adventure and interactions, allowing players to date, to vacation, walk their Sim dog in the park, and throw wild house parties. In addition, the game utilizes the web by allowing players to download new objects and to exchange photo albums and family stories. (and now there’s Sims Online…)
Repository Citation
Thomson, Shawn. "Making Happiness in West Egg and Simburbia: An Inquiry into Consumption in The Great Gatsby and The Sims." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 6, no. 1, 2006, pp. 1–13. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol6/iss1/10
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