It is possible to read the texts of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926) and The Great Gatsby (1925) in the context of the "exchange of values".
Hemingway's protagonist, Jake
Jake Barns, a protagonist and a narrator of this novel, frequently talks about money, emphasizing especially on his settling payments. Jake believes that enjoying life is to learn what things with the equivalent value he can get by paying money.
Therefore, he has always been exchanging the things between the equivalent values thus far. For him, everything in the world, not only money-products relationships but also human relations, is “exchange of values (Ch.8)”.
Such an idea is deeply related to the economic development of the United States during the jazz age of the 1920s. It was the age of mass production and mass consumption due to U.S. economic growth. In such a socio-economic background, it was natural that getting things by spending money has created an American ideological identity.
The best place to foment this idea was France where Americans can spend more money than the U.S., for France experienced some inflation during that time. To live in a country where the currency was not stronger than the U.S. has more financial benefits; thus, it is presumable that such an economic condition led Americans who wanted to change their entire lives to go to Paris.
Fitzgerald's protagonist, Gatsby
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby can also be read by the perspective of the exchange of value. In this work, "money" is used as a weapon of capitalist society, but the symbolic aspect of "money" as a tool of exchanging values is fundamentally different between Gatsby and Tom.
To take Daisy back, Gatsby has built up wealth from nothing. While Tom’s possession of Daisy is obviously his display of her as a part of his property, the meaning of acquiring Daisy for Gatsby is to prove his acquisition of financial power which is suitable for her.
In this respect, Daisy can be expressed as a symbol of wealth for both men. However, her symbolic aspect is different between Gatsby and Tom.
While the pearl necklace, the gift from Tom to Daisy has everlasting value, Gatsby's shirts are the products of his large consumption which represents the liquidity of a currency. Seeing a wide variety of shirts are throwing, Daisy is moved to tears.
