Social Classes In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

At the surface level, The Great Gatsby is most renowned for the tragic love story of Jay Gatsby and Daisy. However, despite this popular understanding, it is rare to find an analysis of the underlying reasons behind their failed romance. In society, social class is a commonly used dividing factor that separates people based on income. In a similar way, the main characters of The Great Gatsby are divided into the following social classes; the old money, the newly- rich and the working class. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes social classes to create a distinct line between the rich and the poor, creating a distinct outcome to the novel due to the advantages and disadvantages of each group.

Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby (2013), by Baz Luhrmann may be considered as a tragic romance but; however within the movie, Luhrmann emphasizes and illustrates the social classes and the importance that wealth had in the American society during the 1920’s era. Through the eyes and voice of the narrator, Nick Carraway’s viewers get to experience first-hand the world of wealth and the joys that being wealthy encompasses .Also, the viewers get a distinct view of the struggle of being within a certain social class. In the Great Gatsby, American society in the 1920's is portrayed as one that puts emphasis on money, superficial relationships, and obsession over class; as well as the value of heritage. The Great Gatsby conveys that social status had an important context in America during the 1920’s, it also distinguishes people from different social class.

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

The author of The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott-Fitzgerald, was born in Minnesota in 1896. He was born into a middle class family and spent most of his childhood living in New York because of his fathers job. Fitzgerald attended Princeton but did not get the chance to graduate because he enrolled into the Army. He was stationed at Fort Leavenworth and was under the influence of Dwight Eisenhower. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays the life of the working class and how people's dreams of moving up in social class began to dwindle if they did not stay hopeful.

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.

T.J Eckleburg’s giant eyed billboard is an essential symbol in The Great Gatsby. Eckleburg’s watchful eyes are a representation of God that observe the people who live in East and West Egg and the valley of ashes. They convey themes like; even when a person perceives himself to be alone, someone is always silently watching. “The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic-their retinas are one yard high…. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (Fitzgerald 27). In chapter seven, Tom, Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, and Jordan decide to go into the city on a hot day. On their way they stop at Wilson’s garage to get fuel. In the same day, Tom and George Wilson both discovered that their wives are having affairs with other men which creates tension between the characters. Dazed from the heat, Nick is overcome with the feeling that something is watching them. He turns to see what it is and notices Eckleburg’s massive eyes staring down at them.

Congratulations! You just won the lottery and are the winner of one point five million dollars! Now, will you choose to put that away and save your wealth, or begin the glamourous life of materialistic items such as houses, clothes and the finest machinery and automobiles? Fitzgerald sets up three distinct social classes in the novel portraying the world as the precarious place it really is. By creating social classes - old money, new money and no money- Fitzgerald's message he is conveying is elitism running throughout society, the power the wealthy possess and how wealth ultimately effects happiness.

One of the main symbols Fitzgerald represents in the book is the billboard, which advertises an image of T.J. Eckleburg's oversized eyes looking down on the valley of ashes in the beginning of the novel. Fitzgerald writes, “But above the gray land and the spasm

How has Fitzgerald used location to depict social class in The Great Gatsby? The 'American Dream", representation and differences in social class are two important themes of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The plot of the novel displays the facades and the appearances of those within the different social classes, displaying the differences and in some cases, the distant similarities. A way in which Fitzgerald highlights the differences between the classes is through settings.

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.

J. Eckleburg which seem faded but ever so present. These eyes have been seen as the eyes of God looking down on his creation and judging the harsh cruelty and social diversity we have between classes. But the eyes “look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose… but his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. (Fitzgerald 24).” The eyes are taken notice of, but then forgotten when they are unnecessary.

Have you ever thought of how social and economic classes work into a capitalist system? Marxists believe that different social and economic classes should be equal. In the book the “Great Gatsby” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald these classes are very much defined and show the flaws and reality of how social and economic classes are viewed through Marxists. Viewing the classes through vulgar Marxists the characters attempting to climb social and economical ladders in the book are not accepted and rejected from upper class individuals. “The Great Gatsby” shows that people attempting to be something he or she is not does not mean they have achieved these social and economic goals and will be rejected by the very people they are attempting to

Social status creates a huge gap with the wealthy and poor, which contributes to the acceptance by society. Myrtle is third class, or in other words poor. She lives the lavish lifestyle when she is with Tom, who buys her a dog and has an apartment for her in New York. She sounds very eager to get a dog, “I want to get one of those dogs, she said earnestly. I want to get one for the apartment. They’re nice to have-- a dog” (Fitzgerald 27). Myrtle is not used to luxurious things like Daisy and Jordan are because they are from a rich family. The apartment is not lavish, but in her eyes it is because it’s a higher standard of living compared to where she lives with her husband.

“I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth” (2). So speaks Nick in the beginning of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This exemplifies how people born into different social classes are not born with the same character and ethics. Since people from different classes think so differently, this may cause conflicts between them and might prevent them from having substantial relationships with each other.

The Roaring Twenties, or the Jazz Age, was a period characterized by post-war euphoria, prosperity, profligacy, and cultural dynamism. There were significant changes in lifestyle and culture in the 1920s; many found opportunities to rise to affluence, which resulted in groups of newly rich people, such as the hero of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby. Set in this booming era, the novel portrays the lavish and reckless lifestyle of the wealthy and elite. With the aristocratic upper class in the East Egg and the nouveau riche in the West Egg, people are divided into distinct social classes. Contrasting the two groups’ conflicting values, Fitzgerald reveals the ugliness and moral decay beneath