How Does Fitzgerald Present West Egg In The Great Gatsby

The East and West Egg reflect Tom and Daisy’s presiding class dominance. Fitzgerald first introduces the places where the main characters Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy live by describing them as “a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay” (5). Already Fitzgerald gives the idea that these eggs have very similar features but are somehow different through his word choice of “identical” and “separated”. Fitzgerald places Gatsby on the West Egg and Tom on the East egg. They are “identical” in wealth but “separated” by class. The West Egg is described as the “less fashionable of the two” (5). By describing the West as “less”, it highlights that East Egg is better than West Egg and therefore its inhabitants have something greater than the other.

Tom and Daisy both were born into wealth and Gatsby only recently acquired the money. While referring to Gatsby, Tom says “a lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know" (107). Tom has a haughty tone as seen through describing the people as “just big bootleggers”. The “just” indicates that Tom doesn’t think very highly of the newly rich people like Gatsby. This shows more of the class difference that Fitzgerald has been pointing out with the setting. By describing Gatsby as a “bootlegger”, it shows Gatsby to be dishonest in the way he acquired his money. This shows the corruption of the American Dream as it was a time to be successful through hard work, but through unlawful ways Gatsby becomes corrupt in his morals and turns to achieving his money in any way he can in order to win Daisy. Through setting Fitzgerald is characterizing Tom and Daisy as higher in social position that Gatsby and furthermore showing the corruption of the American Dream through