Affairs Of The Upper Class In The Great Gatsby

Money, we all need it, but what happens once we actually end up getting our hands on a good amount of it? The book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us the affairs of the upper class within 1920’s New York City. Throughout the book, the reader follows Nick Carraway, a bondsman, as he gets to know Jay Gatsby, the namesake of the title. With his eyes, we see how people who have money live a very different and disconnected life than those who are poor.and the interesting unspoken rivalry between the Old and New Money. Old money, meaning inherited wealth, and new money being earned. The characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan both represent where their money came from, Gatsby as new money is a selfish, and arrogant man, and Tom as old

Because of this, he is openly racist with his peers “The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” (16). He’s lived a life of ignorance, completely unaware how people truly function, because of this is racism, and superiority complex has formed. This isolation also lead to him becoming an abusive man. When his mistress was in a quarrel with him, he resorted to violence to shut her up “Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” (41). Tom is a man who desires to be in control, and when he loses it he tries to get it back through violent means. When he can't use his hands to solve is problems, he hides away in his vast amount of money “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....” (191). People in the old money don't have a care in the world because they control it. They have so much money that they can get away with nearly