Effects Of Capitalism In The Great Gatsby

Riley Carson

Dr. Hunter

English 202-200

24 April 2023

The Evils of Capitalism in Literature In twentieth-century America, the market took a large turn from agricultural sales to commercialism. This shifted America into the capitalistic dystopia that we know today. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and Ginsberg’s “Howl,” all have a similar theme in common, the evil of capitalism. Ezra Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby immerses you into a world of luxury, but that luxury did not come easy, or without pain and suffering. The plot of the story as well as character development shows the evil of capitalism. Jay Gatsby is a “self-made” wealthy man. He achieved this by bootlegging, which was the illegal

Unfortunately for him, Daisy only cared about money and status. Gatsby himself brought this up to Daisy and Tom, “she never loved you, do you hear?’ he cried. ‘She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me,”(Fitzgerald ch 7). This quotation further proves that Daisy only cared about status, and money, driving Gatsby into corrupt ways of making money. This is related to the evils of capitalism because capitalism breeds this sense of needing to have money. Therefore, Gatsby needed to corrupt himself by getting rich but doing illegal things, in order to win over

The poem is widely comprehended as a critique of capitalism and the ways of American society. In the poems in lines 1-5, Ginsberg explains how capitalism affects the people who do not strive in capitalism, the poor and the working class.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix/angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,/who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the/tops of cities contemplating jazz.

In the opening lines, Ginsberg suggests that capitalism has ruined the good minds of his generation by them not having the ability to strive, meaning that unless you are born into wealth there is no way out of poverty. The “angry fix” that Ginsberg references is likely an allusion to drugs. Ginsberg suggests that many impoverished or people who cannot strive under the capitalistic market turn to drugs or alcohol to ease their pains of never being able to succeed. Furthermore, in lines 12-19, Ginsberg suggests that the American people reject the “norms” of American society, which are effects of