How Does Fitzgerald Present The West Egg In The Great Gatsby

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An opposition between two settings is significantly shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, “The Great Gatsby”. The characters in this novel live in either the East or West egg. These two settings represent two distinguishable forces. East Egg is made up of individuals who are born rich, in the other hand, West Egg is known as "new money", which is where people who newly became rich live; their aspiration is to be like the East Egg. The two places in this novel show Jay Gatsby's ambition to become wealthy and win the love of Daisy. Fitzgerald portrays the East Egg and West Egg as two distinct classes of social status. For example, Gatsby's lie to Daisy about his rich family causes her to leave him and marry Tom, a wealthy man from East Egg. Therefore, Tom is an elite and part of the upper class. In contrast, West Egg is build off of lower and middle class …show more content…

For example, hundreds of guests at the party aren't acting very polite; they didn’t even know Gatsby personally yet start rumors about him. Gatsby’s house is also very flashy and is exposed as a person who has a lot of money. Therefore, Fitzgerald shows that the people from the West Egg haven't had a good amount of experience with money and they don't really know how to use it. Aside from the money, the only reason Gatsby is living this lifestyle is for Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby isn’t happy with his life yet remains to expose himself as a person with money to get recognized by Daisy. The fact that he would do all of that for Daisy shows how loyal he is to her. Thus, expressing people who live on the West Egg are more loyal, and care more about people than money, unlike the East Egg. The East is where the people who care more about money than loyalty to their family and friends, and the West is associated with kind-hearted people who care more about the people in their life, instead of the