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Class System In The Great Gatsby

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1920’s Class System Throughout Gatsby During the 1920’s there is a major class structure in American society. Class structure is between the rich and the poor, the men and the women, even old money and new money. Fitzgerald portrays the class system to show that people will put others down to make themselve’s feel better, even if they really are not any better than anyone else. The rich look down on the poor, the old money looks down on new money, and the men look down on the women, even though all of the rich people lose their money in the stock market crash in 1930. Fitzgerald proves that there is really no reason we should put others down and separate people into a class system. Throughout the story there …show more content…

“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy! Shouted Mrs. Wilson. I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai--------”[...] “Tom Buchannon broke her nose with his open hand” (Fitzgerald,ch.2) when Tom was so upset with myrtle. Tom gets mad because he does not think that myrtle to say something like that and mock his golden girl Daisy. Myrtle is poor and is more rough and not such a soft personality, while Daisy is rich, very classy, and she is every man’s dream girl. Since Tom cheats on Daisy with Myrtle, she feels like she means something to Tom and gets jealous that tom is always talking about Daisy. Fitzgerald shows that the more wealthy characters seem more arrogant and self centered and the poor seem more selfless and caring, yet the wealthier characters can also be more classy and the poor have less manners. If someone were to have more money than another person, it doesn't mean they are better than anyone else. It just makes them wealthier. Money doesn’t define who someone is but your attitude towards others dies. The characters in the book and the people during the 1920s who happened to have more money do not realize that their actions are creating a class structure in American

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In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author uses many differnt retorical devices to add a personal flare to his work. He uses diction, symbolism, and irony to adress many different themes. These themes include Materialism, The American Dream, and includes a sharp and biting ridicule on American society in the 1920’s. The main point of Fitzgerald, arguement is one where he sharply criticizes the Society of the time.

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For example when Myrtle starts to say Daisy’s name “ Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “ I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy!

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The impact of socioeconomic status can be examined through a myriad of lenses. F. Scott Fitzgerald aims to show the relationship between socioeconomic status and power. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Tom’s character shows that socioeconomic status is equivalent to power within the novel. Tom puts great pride and emphasis on his socioeconomic status and wealth.

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In the Great Gatsby, privilege comes into play. Privilege in this context means being born with advantages that you did not earn or work for. Some people have to work to get their money but others are born with money which means that they didn’t have to work for their money. Gatsby for example was not born with money. He had to make his own money by selling and dealing drugs and is now a very wealthy man.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby describes the life of Jay Gatsby in the 1920’s. The novel shares his love story and his loneliness. A major question the author raises is how does wealth impact class structure and society? Fitzgerald answers this question through the distinction between “New rich” and “Old rich” and the significance of East and West Egg.

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Society is constantly under the criticism of authors. Many writers seek to expose certain aspects of American society and their scorn of it. Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald are renowned for their work on this subject. In The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence, Fitzgerald and Wharton reveal their cynicism of the societal elite; they find the elite as a severe detriment to American society. Through symbolism and the characterization of their main characters, Wharton and Fitzgerald similarly depict the societal elite as depriving American society from a promising future by refusing to let go of the past.

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During the twenties the economy of the United States was changing greatly. Due to the establishment of the prohibition of alcohol the billionaires were those who would smuggle the goods to society. The Great Gatsby is a novel which portrays the different societies of the United States during the twenties differently. F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on revealing the types of lives lived by each social group. Throughout the book we are exposed to the marginalization of women and the lower class during the time, since the important individuals in society were the wealthy people who impacted the economy of the country.

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1. Write a five sentence summary of the chapter. In this chapter there is a rude and absurd gesture where the they dumb all the ashes onto the places where people live, Therefore they have to work hard to shovel them out, From the start it shows if you have money then life is easier, 2. Chose a character to focus on in this chapter (should be a different character for each chapter) A. Name the character _________myrtle ___________________________ B. Chose a quote that you think that best represents the character.

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In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values. One of the major themes explored in this novel is the Hollowness of the Upper Class. The entire book revolves around money including power and little love. Coincidentally the three main characters of the novel belong to the upper class and throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how this characters have become corrupted and have lost their morality due to excess money and success and this has led them to change their perspective towards other people and they have been portrayed as short-sighted to what is important in life. First of all, we have the main character of this novel, Gatsby who won’t stop at nothing to become rich overnight in illegal dealings with mobsters such as Wolfsheim in order to conquer Daisy’s heart.”

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The author characterizes the wealthy by juxtaposing Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, the two affluent characters in the novel. Fitzgerald juxtaposes them by first revealing both as wealthy, introducing them closely, and highlighting their different natures through how they earned their wealth and through the plot to show how the wealthy class with old money is soulless. Although both Tom and Gatsby are prosperous, only Tom is depicted as heartless since he has old money and was in the wealthy class his entire life. Gatsby, however, has new money and since he earned it, he is not described as soulless because he wasn’t always in the wealthy class to where he is adapted their heartless nature. These differences correlate with their personality and with how Fitzgerald condemns the wealthy with old money as callous.

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In the novel, Great Gatsby, the two main women presented are Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. There are many similarities and differences between Daisy and Myrtle. For instance both of them are unhappy in their lives and they are love in with a different with person, not with their husband. Their marriage is a jail. They are both in love with Tom in a different way, Daisy is the wife and Myrtle is the mistress.

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“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” (Fitzgerald 179). This quote captures the advantages the upper class has because of their money. Tom and Daisy’s actions left three people dead, yet they received no punishments .They put all their baggage on the lower class, and left them to pick up the pieces.     In The Great Gatsby, the theme of social class is very significant in the book. Scott F. Fitzgerald used the theme of social class to show the reader that it plays a much bigger role in life.

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Marxist Critique of The Great Gatsby Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald grew up in an era of appearing successful corporations, industrial boom, and an increased focus on financial value over a person’s internal attributes. The radical economic shift from the early 1900s to the 1920s to capitalism altered the core, accepted societal beliefs in a major way, one that is very evident in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As a man who suffered from a number of the negative effects of capitalism’s influence on human connection, F. Scott Fitzgerald reflected his personal experiences through his writing. Fitzgerald used The Great Gatsby as an outlet to express his hidden, personal frustration about his reality during the 1920s; therefore, each major character

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Myrtle is accustomed to living an underprivileged life where feminine power engulfs her, but Tom is too egotistical to allow Myrtle to speak with such authority to him. Similarly, Gatsby’s need for assurance from Daisy pressures her into revealing to Tom that she never loved him (Fitzgerald 132). Deep down, Daisy knows that she truly did love Tom once, but Gatsby’s assertiveness and persistence drives her over the edge to telling Tom that what the two of them shared meant nothing to her. Daisy’s attribute of being a pushover is revealed immensely because she refuses to stand up for herself. Daisy is used to enabling Tom to constantly control all aspects of her life, and that leaves her powerless in society.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby shows little, if any attention to political issues at the time. In the 1920s, also known as the “Jazz Age” the lifestyle is mostly driven by the wants and desire of individuals. Fitzgerald raises the lack of political concern at the time derived from the characters of the novel. The main political conflict is the fissure between the rich and the poor.

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