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How Did F Scott Fitzgerald Use Class Differences In The Great Gatsby

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In his novel, The Great Gatsby, he writes about the idle but permanent rich, temporary rich would be rich and the patient, envious poor, though the focus is always on the first group. To materialise their dream, Americans had to do all they could, honestly or dishonestly, in order to make themselves more comfortable. During the 1920s, America was characterised by class differences. People from the poor areas and families constituted a lower class, people from the rich areas and people from the aristocracy constituted the upper class because the major goal of most Americans was to achieve happiness; each class had to struggle on its part to gain its happiness according to its will. Then, the upper class tried to dominate the lower classes in …show more content…

There were the Whites on the one hand, and the Black, the Jews, and other inferior races on the other hand. At the time when Francis Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, he wanted to satirise the American society concerning the many Blacks and other so called inferior races, which were maltreated by Whites. This is evident as he uses some characters to reflect the reality of racism in America. For instance, the original name of Gatsby was James Gatz he changed his name in order to have another name which will help him to reach ambition, it is a name of Jewish origin. Jews were treated as an inferior race. In this struggle of attaining joy and fortune, inferior races were to be minimised and intermarriages between Blacks and Whites existed but they were not encouraged because love at that time was conditioned by wealth, marriage was only possible between equals and some people were victims of their colour, origin and class. This is the case of Gatsby in the novel, which did not succeed to marry Daisy because of his race and social

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Throughout chapter 6 of The Great Gatsby, social class and status are addressed in a variation of different ways. From the opening of the chapter, we learn about poor Mr. Gatz who's trying to sort his life out of almost nothing at all. An example of this can be seen when Nick is explaining Gatsbys younger years. “...to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor’s work with which he was to pay his way through.

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In the novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author uses setting as a central idea throughout chapters 1 and 3. Chapter 1 takes place in the West Egg located on Long Island, home to the newly rich, where we get introduced to our narrator Nick Carraway. Nick starts by sharing a lesson that his father told him, "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. " In "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on the theme of social classes, especially as it relates to his main character, Nick. Although this theme runs throughout the novel, it's especially evident as Nick travels to areas where different social status portrays the

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In the United States, there are three main social class levels: lower class, middle class, and the upper class. The most common characteristics that are associated with class structure are income and education level. In the 1920’s, the economy was at a prime period known as the “Roaring Twenties”. It was a time for

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The novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, takes place in the 1920s in New York City. In the novel, social and economic class are very prevalent, and cause many issues for the characters and their interactions with others. Overall the novel highlights how the character’s social class affects the morals, values, and characteristics of the upper class, through the treatment of others from different classes, the lives the characters live, and the decisions made Within the novel the class of a person impacts their treatment of others. Whether it be through words or actions, there is a very visible class divide not only from the description of the characters but how they interact with one another.

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The 1920s was one of the most successful times in U.S. history. The book “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, shows just how extravagant everything is. The class structure in the book is similar to the real world 1920s. There are three different class structures in the novel. Fitzgerald shows how there is an affect on their personalities Due to the amount of money they have.

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The “Glitz and Glam” of the Roaring 20’s seen throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby creates a surreal environment where Fitzgerald is able to explore the many social issues during the 1920’s. Throughout the story the differences in social class are highlighted by Fitzgerald due to his use of literary elements. Fitzgerald clearly breaks his characters into three different classes: the old money wealthy elite, the newly-rich, and the working class. Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald uses well detailed settings and characterization to show the social issue of class class difference in the 1920’s.

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In the Great Gatsby a big theme is social class. Social class was a big theme in the Great Gatsby because it reflected the social and cultural value of the 1920 era. This novel demonstrated a good example of the wealthy and the working class. The wealthy are the people who inherited money from their family and the working class are the average people who still have to work to pay the rent. In the novel the Great Gatsby the characters are divided by their social class.

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In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the pursuit of love between contrasting social classes in order to teach his audience the overall lesson that everyone chooses and is attracted to their soulmate in consideration of whether they have a substantial fortune or if they stand high on the social ladder, but due to the fact that different social classes do not wed, only relationships in the same social class prosper. Fitzgerald utilizes his complex characters; Jay Gatsby, the protagonist who is in love with Daisy Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan who had a past with Gatsby but is married to Tom Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, a rich socialite who is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, and George Wilson, the husband of Myrtle Wilson to portray

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The American Dream for non-whited in American during the early 1900’s was non existant. Fritzagerald shows through his characters the distortion entitlement and greed of their American Dream. This is shown when Gatsby says “I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all many ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.” Gatsby was not born wealth but was able to gain the money.

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The American Dream is the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success, prosperity, and social mobility through hard work, determination, and initiative. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby attempts to achieve social mobility but ultimately fails due to the constructs of old vs new money. An argument is shown that the American Dream is just that, a dream, and that happiness cannot be achieved through wealth. In the novel, the super poor are stuck in their social class, unable to move because they live in the valley of ashes, which represents poverty and the corruption and social decay that came with the lavish and careless lifestyles of the rich.

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The social classes of old money, new money, and the working class in The Great Gatsby send a message of elitism running through America in the 1920’s. The old money class are judgemental and exclusive. Nick realizes how the people of East Egg feel about the lesser classes as Nick examines daisy and thinks, “She looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.” (pg. 22). Daisy and Tom Buchanan represent the type of people old money are.

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Consumption is a new necessity”(Lynd). The rapid growth in economy also changed the role for the citizen, when consumerism became the priority for growth. However, the lower class, still struggling to gain money to survive, was totally not capable of consuming luxury goods as the wealthy people did. In this manner, the lower class could never compete and catch up with the higher class, not even mention to join and become the higher class. In considering the lower class was consisted of the majority of the citizens, the higher class, dominated the most wealth and power in the nation, as

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Decline of the American dream In the 1920s people traveled to America for new beginnings and a better life regardless of social status away from their homeland. In the great Gatsby you see a downfall in the 1920s and the culture of wealthy American’s with an excessive amount of luxurious materials. Nick writes, he had just arrived in New York where he moved to work in the bond business, and rented a house on a part of Long Island called West Egg. West egg and its residents represent the newly rich while east egg and its residents like daisy and tom represent the old aristocracy. The author portrays the newly rich as gaudy and vulgar also lacking social taste and grace.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald presents many themes in his novel, The Great Gatsby. One of the themes is Society and Class. This theme is developed throughout the book by his use of the motif of cheating. The motif of cheating compares how large sums of money are acquired, most people don’t have rich parents or grandparents to give them money so they have to make it themselves and sometimes it comes to unlawful actions. . This motif represents that sometimes you think of the rich and famous as perfect and big and worked hard for their money but sometimes they cheat their way into popularity and did not work as hard as you think for it but their presentation is flawless.

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In the 1920’s, social classes were divided with a large gap. The poor wanted nothing to do with the rich, and the rich wanted even less to do with the poor. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he uses the class structure in the 1920’s to redefine poverty. While the rich people in the novel are material rich, they are still “poor” socially and psychologically. Poverty is shown in a differently in this book than other books being written in this time era, and in doing this, it shows the rich what they are, and how they treat others from a different perspective.

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