Classism In The Great Gatsby Analysis

Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is a middle-class American from the Midwest who moves into the wealthy world of Long Island during the Roaring Twenties. At first he sees this life as perfect, the people around him have enormous wealth and they don’t seem to have any worries because of the world they live in. He soon learns that their lives are very flawed. Despite their wealth they seem to have no morals. They party, they lie and they cheat on their wives and husbands and don’t even worry about it. Even Nick, who is much more conservative because of his background, is drawn into the glamour

Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, there is a constant theme present: social class. Fitzgerald makes a connection between the theme of social class, and the settings in the novel for example The Valley of Ashes which is described as a “desolate area of land” (p.21) and a “solemn dumping ground” (p.21) which is where the poor people live. The Valley of Ashes is situated between West Egg and New York, West Egg being the place where the aspiring classes are situated, which is the “less fashionable of the two” (p.8), this is where Gatsby lives. West Egg is the place of ‘new money’, Fitzgerald shows this by the idea of the main character Jay Gatsby, rumoured to be selling illegal alcohol (prohibition) which means he is quickly making vast

Social classes are truly like a ladder, but that final step is by far the most difficult. Trying to become the most powerful, and successful person around it an almost impossible task, which very few will ever achieve. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby spends his entire life attempting to climb the social ladder, in order to win back his young love, Daisy Buchanan. The novel makes a naturalism argument stating that no matter how hard you try, and how much you think you’ve achieved in your life, you will most likely never be able to rise from a lower social class.

Class structure in the 1920s was synonymous to prejudice. The 1920s was known as a period of wild excess and great parties with excitement arising from the ashes of the wars in America’s history. It was a period in history where rapid materialism and narcissistic ideals grew uncontrollably, and it was the days where Jay Gatsby, illegally, rose to success. Having social classes was the same as segregation, except it was through economic standings, the two both instil injustice within social standards. Class structure was used to describe the difference between the new money and old money. The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, written during the 1920s, emphasizes the division between the social classes and the reasons behind why they

In the novel The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald shows how Tom and Daisy Buchanan represent the upper class. High social class in the 1920’s was pretty much millionaires as well as rich people like Donald Trump, who are crazy about money; hurt does not matter to them. Like most celebrities that get into trouble they can avoid trouble because they are rich, they can get themselves out of trouble. During the 1920’s higher class could truly do what they want; money allows them to pay people off. Being rich in 1920s was truly impressive everyone wanted to be upper class. recently people have become a little more careful with money due to so much economic trouble. Then we also have lower class of 1920 which is being able to support themselves but barely just like Myrtle and Wilson. Most of the time, lower class people get looked down upon by upper-class because they have money which allows them to look down upon whomever they would like. Upper-class people can get away with whatever they want including being cruel, mean to lower class people. Represent upper-class during 1920’s which links to today’s life by their attitude toward everyone else, their possessions, and how they deal with their mistakes.

Money is essential for survival; it can bring happiness, despair, or corruption. It rules our daily lives, is preferred in large amounts, and separates us into different social classes. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is a perfect example of this since the class structure within the novel, portrays how money or the need for it can cause corruption in all the different social classes. This is shown through the three distinct classes: old money represented by the Buchanan’s and their self-centered, racist nature, new money represented by Gatsby and his mysterious, illegal ways, and a class that can be called no money represented by the Wilson’s and their attempts at

A billboard advertisement may be viewed by some as a creepy doctor with gigantic blue eyes, or God for one spiritless man who also had light, blue eyes. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby uses symbols, but only through close reading may one discover the true meaning and connections that these symbols have. The 1920s are usually called the “Roaring Twenties,” but Fitzgerald shows, through symbols, that the 1920s were not “roaring” for everybody. In the 1920s the American Dream was still vivid, but it did not always come to reality for many. Examples include Jay Gatsby and people who worked in factories that lived a low-class life, which was much worse than the lives of those

Fitzgerald, in his sarcastic novel The Great Gatsby, frequently shows how racism and classism seriously influence the possibilities of achieving American dreams in obscure methods. The novel details Gatsby’s achievements and dream including Daisy, and makes comparison with other people in different races and classes indirectly but visibly. The fact that, though Gatsby is much wealthier than those in East Egg, he has never achieved the American dream, never owned Daisy truly and never acquired respect, but rumours, due he isn’t born in high class and makes money through bootleg. To some extent, the miserable end of Gatsby is the reflection of the disparity of classism. Gatsby’s mansion reminds people of the feasibility of making the American dream come true. However, his unexpected death that is not caught by police, but killed by Wilson, a white man in mid class, proves that it is related to races and classes closely. Fitzgerald takes us into the suffering of Gatsby to show us that the American dream is like a shell company, which makes everyone look forward to their future with great expectations, but only certain people can truly reach it because people are not standing on the same starting line.

But that is altogether how the narrator sees him; Tom sees himself as a refined person, who believes to know about the superiority of the Nordic race, who is "standing alone on the last barrier of civilization" and has to defend "family life and family institutions"(Fitzgerald 136). But he fails to see that his own adultery endangers such values and that his social strength only derives from his family′s wealth.

Through the repeated use of the word “money“, Fitzgerald develops the theme of the division between social classes, in the novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays the differences between the classes of old wealth and new wealth, as well as the impecunious class. Upon moving to West Egg, Nick Carraway describes the volume of books he bought for his new home as “gold like new money from the mint” (8). With gold representing old wealth, this juxtaposition with new money symbolizes Nick’s desire to become a part of the new wealth, through old wealth’s secrets, “that only Midas and Morgan and Mæcenas knew” (8). Nick has aspirations of new wealth, but Jay Gatsby is the epitome of this lifestyle.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby he uses vigorous imagery and symbols to contrast the lives and attitudes of the social classes in the 1920s which express the power of social class and money. Fitzgerald creates three different social groups during the novel and in the end each group had their own problem to bottle with. He uses location to separate each social class: the old money lives in the East Egg, the new money lives in the West Egg, and no money live in the Valley of Ashes. The East Egg is the representation of old money.

The pursuit of any success in life is a complicated journey. Only a handful of people make it to the big time. The challenge is even more difficult because the amount of people trying to achieve the same goal when only a selected few can. Corruption and deceit are inevitable in a dream driven by money. The Great Gatsby examines and critiques the vision of the American dream.

‘Social class is the deciding factor in all loving relationships’. To what extent is this the case in The

What does the novel show about society and class differences? Well in the Roaring Twenties, many people from all of the social classes became aware of the class differences. The classes was obviously divided by location, amount of material possessions and the way one person acts. For a American novel class is an unusual theme, it is more common to find it in European and British novels. Most of the societies are divided between the rich and the older modern way.

The deeper themes and social distinctions observed by the protagonist Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby make the story one of America’s most iconic novels, revealing the extravagance and profligacy of the wealthy in a pre-Great Depression New York City. The distinction between social classes experienced by Nick throughout the novel are a product of institutional powers whose effects are represented in the social relations of the text. Through his opinions of various characters and his interactions with them, Nick slowly overgoes a change from a stance of moral ambiguity to one of principled clarity. The novel is developed through Nick’s reflections, insights, and social interactions with Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and Gatsby, and each of these characters’ varying statuses and respective influences of institutional power develop Carraway’s opinions and decisions as he attempts to understand the convoluted society of the wealthy.