Great Gatsby Assignment

the Great Gatsby Independent Reading Assignment

Safwaan Islam

Mrs. Harris

ENG 1D7

13 November 2014

Being that the Great Gatsby relates to the difference between the upper and lower classes as a significant theme. It is perceived in a variety of ways, as the effects of the socioeconomic factors, history, and geography, creates conflict such as greed by the desire of possessions. The loss of hope with the declining of the American dream, and the different traits between the distinctions of classes in the life of Jay Gatsby.

The setting of this novel takes place in New York City and Long Island in the summer of 1922. The two islands the main characters inhabit are West Egg

This was Gatsby’s final path to joining the prominent status of the upper class, but before World War I he had a different path, believing in the American Dream, which was the idea that everyone has the potential to achieve greatness through hard work. Born into a poor family, he loathed the life of the poor, later dropping out of college, because he could not tolerate paying his way through as a part-time janitor. Thereafter, he was involved in a ten year yacht odyssey but was cheated of twenty-five thousand dollars from his mentor’s will by his mentor’s mistress. He is then trained for the infantry during World War I, and during a party he falls in love with Daisy, who would only be wed to someone of a high status, but after the war Gatsby is still not in the vicinity of being in the upper class, despite being promoted to Major and honoured for his valour. Once again Gatsby is let down by the American Dream and he now understands that no quantity of work can change his past that he was born poor with no money, it ends up being a egotistical chase of gratification, as he illegally sells alcohol during the Prohibition as he also began to befriend criminals like Meyer Wolfheim, “the man who fixing the World’s Series back in 1919” (Fitzgerald

When he met Daisy, he was wearing his officer’s uniform so that he couldn’t be differentiated from being poor or rich. It wasn’t only his appearance he changed, he even went to the extent to change his behaviour and habits, as he wanted seem like the wealthy, which he had been taught by his mentor as a yachtsman, such as referring to his friends as “old sport” (Fitzgerald 86), at the end of his sentences, even rewriting his past by attending trinity college, Oxford, as Gatsby states, ”I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years” (Fitzgerald 64), which clearly isn’t true, but he has proofs to back up his statements. The author carefully embedded conflicts between classes show the importance of this theme, for example rich people were peaceful and would only use snide comments to argue but between the rich and the poor there was violene, like how Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose or how Wilson murders Gatsby. The rich, despite being more peaceful they had poor character, Daisy and Tom were the kind to be greedy and demonstrated fitfulness according to the situation, like Tom, who actually began caring about Daisy after he had realised that Myrtle, his mistress was moving away and Daisy was going with Gatsby, so out of desperation to avoid loneliness he does his best to keep Daisy. Also, even Gatsby for the most part