Effect Of Social Class In The Great Gatsby

Brooke Jankwietz
Ms. Clemons
Adv. English III
20 March 2023
Effect of Social Classes
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the poem “Brass Spittoons” by Langston Hughes highlights differences in class status and its effects during the early 20s. The Great Gatsby shows many different representations of social class and status throughout the book. There are also many different symbols and motifs used throughout the novel to help better produce the different social classes. In the book, Fitzgerald uses different characters and places to show class and wealth differences, and their general differences of life because of the class divide. Between the book, and Hughes “Brass Spittoons”, it is shown that separate classes do different things

In “Brass Spittoons” Hughes makes the narrator a lower class worker, who is blatantly trying to provide for their family. The narrator is only making “Two dollars a day.” (Hughes, line 15), and they constantly express their need to work. This is expressed by lines like “Babies and gin and church / And women and Sunday / All mixed with dimes and / Dollars and clean spittoons / And house rent to pay.” (Hughes, lines 26 - 30). It seems like the narrator is expressing what’s happening around them, but they still need to work to be able to have all of these things. These things specifically show that if less fortunate people don’t work for what they need, they can lose what they have. This is also expressed in The Great Gatsby by the character of George Wilson. George is characterized as the exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. Nick describes George as a “blond, spiritless man, anaemic and faintly handsome” (Fitzgerald 17). This description hints that if George was not lower class, then he would most-likely be a handsome blond man with some vitality. George and the protagonist in “Brass Spittoons” are both characters that show they still need work to provide for their families, but since they’re providing for their families, they need to work more. It seems to be a cycle of constantly working to provide, but when they

For example, Tom would represent upper class, Nick would represent a more middle class type, and George would be lower class. Tom is old money, and throughout the book he seems to be the main character of the upper class status. He went to Yale, just as Nick did, but he played on the football team and some people even disliked him. Although he and Nick were in the same senior society, they were never really intimate with one another, but Nick had the impression that “[Tom] had approved of [Nick] and wanted [Nick] to like [Tom] with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own” (Fitzgerald 7). This is an example of looking for societal approval because he’s