Examples Of Racism In The Great Gatsby

How would you react if you were falsely accused of a crime when all of your life you had been a good man. However, the catch was you were African American.  A white man’s word against your own. What would be running through your mind? This is exactly the kind of question that was running through Tom Robinson’s mind in this novel. During the 1930s, discrimination against targeted groups of society was prevalent, but small victories occurred to combat this issue in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. From Tom Robinson’s trial, to various stereotypes being broken, and the incidents that took place in Calpurnia’s church for colored people. All of these factors contribute to the purpose behind this novel’s meaning.

To Kill a Mockingbird took place during the 1930s, a period shortly after the American civil war in Maycomb County, Alabama, the deep south where black people suffered from racism and discrimination. In this book, Tom Robinson was accused of raping a white woman, which was something that he’s never done, even though all the evidence proved that he did not violate that white woman, Tom was judged guilty because he was a black man. Racism is presented throughout the entire book especially when Scout got teased by her family about Atticus taking Tom’s case, and the townspeople's perception about Atticus, as well as during the trial of Tom Robinson.

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby to criticize society’s modern custom, hypocrisy. In the story, Fitzgerald emphasizes appearances. The Webster dictionary defines the word as, “an impression given by someone or something”. The author discusses how people love to make things appear as something different, something they dream and yearn for. Fitzgerald uses three major characters to describe the main behaviors of hypocrites in society: first we have those, such as Nick Carraway, that claim to have animosity towards the delusions of society, yet they become accomplices of what they despise. Then we have the individuals who are like Tom, who demand that others follow their virtues, even if they don’t follow them themselves. Finally we

Whilst The Great Gatsby appears to portray modernist trends in social attitudes and behaviours, there are elements of Fitzgerald’s characters that reflect the xenophobic attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan. Tom Buchanan embodies the prejudicial views of his era, as his racism is evident from the beginning of the novel. He claims that white civilization will be overthrown by African-Americans, advising that “it's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have

Throughout human history, race has been an integral part in understanding how humans interact. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is no different. During the 1920s, race relations were much different compared to today. In The Great Gatsby, the story is presumably dominated by the Caucasian race. Also, Tom seems to represent some the racial ideology of the time period. It is very possible that Jay Gatsby was in fact African-American in The Great Gatsby. We can see this by his mannerisms and the way he interacts with other characters.

Racism has not just gone away there are still people out there thinking there are only certain things white people can do and certain things only black people can do. Or some people that think the world is owed to them because of their skin color, or they are superior because of their skin color. It has never stopped because as a society we have done nothing about it and made it a common thing. A good example would be, in To Kill a Mockingbird when Calpurnia brought the children to church Lula got upset about it. “Lula stopped, but she said, “You ain’t got no business briging’ whit chillun her-they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church ain’t it, Miss Cal?”(Lee) Things like that still happen today just not as extreme people separate themselves in some cases due to race and that is one thing that needs to be worked on.

, the rights of African Americans were limited and were segregated from whites, which constantly reminded African Americans their position in the era of prosperity and new freedoms. In the novel The Great Gatsby, Tom and Gatsby dispute into an argument, Tom erupts into a rant “Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white”( Fitzgerald 137). Demonstrating the greater atmosphere the era possessed and the ethnic discrimination colored people faced in this society, revealing that race and ethnicity had a negative influence in the twenties, as many people had racist ideologies that kept the races separated and colored people were thought to be less than the others, another reference in the novel The Great Gatsby, demonstrates the prejudice that Nick reveals, as Nick and Gatsby are driving over the Queensboro Bridge, Gatsby is passed by a hearse and a limousine “A limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes”(Fitzgerald 73). It reveals the mindset of people in the 1920s, and the idea that colored people could have not be wealthy, and the position they held during this era, demonstrating the segregation African Americans and whites held in society, and Nick cannot grasp the idea of another race moving towards in society, as colored people faced prejudice .The Roaring

At the beginning of the book the first real conversation Nick, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan have together is spent by Tom interrupting both Daisy and Jordan to lecture them about a book called “‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’”(12). He first interrupts Daisy by stating that in this book, “this fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things”(13). He then continues, after interrupting Jordan, that the “‘idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, … and we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?’”(13). He completely agrees with this book; he even states that “‘it’s a fine book, and everybody ought the read it’”(12). And later in the book, during his fight with Gatsby over Daisy, he slips in that “next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white”(130). His racism comes from a similar place as his sexism: the belief that he is better than blacks, and his belief that he is better than

Assimilation fosters integration in a society. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, narrator and Minnesota native Nick Carraway wavers between his attraction to New York’s indulgence and his own conservatism. Assimilation would require Nick to forsake familiar customs, at least outwardly, in order to adopt the mannerisms of his new home. Since he abstains from the prevailing New York culture, he retains his habits but marginalizes himself further. Nick’s morals impede him from immersing himself in the hedonistic and impersonal New York environment. Despite being initially drawn to the individualism and wealth of New York, Nick Carraway surmises that the gaudy and moneyed allure of the East is morally inferior to his principled character,

The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in 1922, an era of loosening morals, jazz and bootlegging. Chasing his own American Dream Nick ends up living next door to a mysterious, party throwing millionaire, Jay Gatsby and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan. Throughout the novel there is a theme of Racism and Anti-Semitism. Racism and Anti-Semitism in the 1920s will greatly influence the ideas of Tom Buchanan and Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.

In this novel white represents being rich, pure, above, and angel-like. Towards the beginning of the book Daisy and Jordan were in white dresses. The novel says, “Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire.” (Fitzgerald.12) This quotes proves that white is a symbol of being rich, pure, above, and angel-like because they compare white as being a color of as being cool like which means clean old money. During this spot of the story Tom shows his character by being quite a bit racist. The novel says, “‘Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it.

Fitzgerald uses connotation, simile, kinetic imagery and temporal diction in the passage to suggest that in 1920’s American culture, displaying a prosperous outward appearance is the only viable means of achieving one’s goals. During the rightly named “Roaring 20’s”, America undergoes a progressive societal metamorphosis. However, the attractive nature of material wealth still holds tight within American minds. Gatsby longs for both authority over his peers, as well as a favored status within his class. It is implied through connotation, simile, temporal diction, and kinetic imagery that he can only reach these objectives by having a successful exterior profile.

How different people in Maycomb view the issue of race affects how those people treat others.

In the 1962 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee, shows how racism can impact a society in a negative way through character construction because it is a reoccurring problem. In chapter 15; while Tom Robinson awaits his trial, he is transferred to the Maycomb jail. At ten o’clock pm, Atticus is on his way to the jailhouse; Scout, Jem, and Dill follow secretively. When Atticus got to the jail, he sat outside the doors and read; meanwhile the kids are hiding and spying on him. In the middle of Atticus is reading, four cars pull up, a group of men get out of the cars and tell Atticus to move away from the jailhouse doors. The men want Tom Robinson to get released; so that they can severely beat him and possibly murder him, simply because of the color of his skin.  The characters in To Kill a Mockingbird are all constructed differently. Some characters are constructed to be extremely closed-mindedly prejudice, while others are constructed to be open-minded and accepting of differences. Although the book is set in an earlier generation, concepts of the book are extremely relevant today.

The slave mindset of white families and slaveowners continued after the abolishment of slavery in 1865 in the form of segregation which was enforced by state and local governments through the use of Jim Crow laws. The levels of racism in the 1930s versus the lower levels of racism in the present correspond with the decline of Jim Crow laws beginning in the mid-20th century, which affected the societal status of black people, their economic status, and their continued effect on today’s laws.