Social Class In The Great Gatsby

Tom fears that his own kind will be overrun by others, such as dreamers like Gatsby. Tom hides “behind his wealth” (Pidgeon 179) and “leave others to clean up [his] messes” (Pidgeon 180). Tom’s arrogance and racism help create his character and establish his place in the society. Tom’s personality depicts his cruel ways of protecting the old money’s ways of life from the new money people. He considers himself above of everyone else.

The emerging inequitable class systems and antagonisms of the nineteen twenties saw the traditional order and moral values challenged, as well as the creation of great wealth for few and poverty for many. The Great Gatsby, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, explores the causes and effects of the unbalanced class structures. Fitzgerald outlines the idea that the desire to accumulate wealth and status is a common ambition amongst the lower classes; when that desire is reached, the traditional upper class is challenged by the emerging newly wealthy, which finally leads to destructive consequences. By creating rigid class structures, traditional upper class, new wealth, and the poor in The Great Gatsby, it is

Nick moved from Midwestern America to the East Coast. Cities have historically been viewed as centers of depravity, while rural areas represent simplicity and thus a kind of innocence. Every time the characters travel between the Eggs and the city, they pass beneath a billboard containing the infamous eyes of

Once Nick Carraway, the narrator, moves into a small home in West Egg, he soon comprehends that East Egg and West Egg are completely different. Carraway realizes the East Egg is where the upscale residents live and West Egg is more economically disadvantaged as he explains, “I lived at West Egg, the--well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them” (Fitzgerald 5). East Egg residences extremely wealthy people whose wealth has been passed down the line for years, while West Egg houses the hard-working people who build up their wealth. Furthermore, Thomas C. Fowler defines that living in a wealthy, luxurious geographical environment can reconstruct a character into a conceited personality explaining, “Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces inhabiting humans” (174). This theory is correct because the residences’ in East Egg are spoiled, selfish people finding themselves in a wealthy and treasured lifestyle.

Tom Buchanan, a member of the East Egg comunity, is shown to have amazing tastes, in particular when it comes to the beauty of his home. Fitzgerald writes, “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens-finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of french windows glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon” (6). The way in which Nick describes Toms home, makes it sound like a beautiful wonderland. It seems extremely elegant and just simply perfect. Even the setting and time of day match its beauty coincidentally. Furthermore, the intricacy of Toms home reflects what people think of the people who reside in East Egg. Their tastes seem to be so far ahead of everyone else’s, and they are able to express their minds through crafting these landscapes with ease. This portrays a very pretty picture of what Fitzgerald wants the reader to think about the characters who reside in East Egg.

Nick’s descriptions of the two houses depict a true representation of the person within. No matter how alike the houses are in size or style, Nick is able to identify the people inside with his word choices and honest perceptions. At the beginning Nick says East and West Egg were “identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay”, but the “more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size”(5). The contrasting dynamic of

When Nick meets up with his cousin Daisy and his old classmate Tom in East Egg, he is shown an unfamiliar side of people, a darker side, and he is at a loss and out of his element. Nick is tempted and curious about these things and they lead him away from his midwestern upbringing. The love triangles, the infidelity, gold digging and homicide disgust Nick and he becomes resolved to move back to his midwestern comfort zone almost like in doing so, he will be able to wash himself clean of the experience. Although the character Nick acts as a confidant for those around him, it seems that the burden of their indiscretions is too much for him and he returns to the familiarity and the safety of the morals he was raised on.

The story is told by narrator, Nick Carraway who has moved to West Egg, a district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by people who have become rich quickly and show off their wealth but have no social connections.

Tom shows how he is an oppressor, he believes that in order for everything to run smoothly,he needs controlling everyone and that other people are below him.

3. Nick describes Tom Buchanan as an over privileged, unsatisfiable man who peaked in college. Nick explains that after Tom's time in the spotlight as a star football player nothing that's comes after could ever live up to his expectations. When Nick goes to visit Tom and Daisy for the first time in many years he

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

Nick’s summer in the East egg is and educational experience. He learns about Tom’s affair with Myrtle and how abusive tome is- breaking Myrtle’s nose because she wants him to leave his wife. Nick about Tom and Myrtle “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (P 188). Now it’s true the education he came East Egg for was to learn about the bond business. The timing was great. It was 1992 and the economy was great. The 1920’s a happy extravagant time. Unfortunately Nick learned more about the business of the newly rich in East Egg. He discovers that Gatsby’s car was involved in an accident in which Myrtle Wilson was killed.

To be better is to be different, although to some people, such as Tom, to be better is to come from a certain place, or hold a certain name, he says, “Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white”(Fitzgerald 130). In the East Egg, only those who have been born into wealth and luxury can afford to live in its lavish homes and enjoy its breathtaking views. For everyone else in the world, those who were not nearly as lucky to be born into this life must work as hard as they possibly can and hope that one day, they can enjoy that same life. Sometimes, in life, people tend to end up somewhere that they do not belong, and feel an almost fabricated sense of contentedness, as Nick says, “Perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life”(Fitzgerald 176). Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway do not belong in the West Egg, they are both relics of the lost generation, and self-made men of their own creation. Even though the West Egg is reserved for those who, just like Nick and Jay make a name for themselves, they cannot help but still feel incomplete, almost as if they feel some strange form of

The West Egg speaks to a more dynamic, inventive way of life. Nick, who lives in the West Egg, terms himself as a "guide, a pathfinder" As compared to the East Egg, it is also a land of “honest people”

Another contrasting value between the East Egg upper class and the West Egg new rich is