Lois Tyson's 'You Are What You Own'

In Lois Tyson’s “You Are What You Own: A Marxist Reading of The Great Gatsby”, Tyson critiques the capitalist society of 1920s American life. Tyson claims that The Great Gatsby shows the irony of capitalism in its relationship to the American dream, because in the novel, the lower class never genuinely has a chance at obtaining the same wealth as the upper class, and the rich only became rich through illegal activities or family inheritance.
Though the American dream allows anyone to become rich with hard work, it is revealed through Tyson’s analysis that the lower class of American society does not have the opportunity to obtain wealth equal to that of the upper class. Tyson starts by identifying the “valley of ashes” (70), an area littered

In an efficient market economy like that of America in the 1920s, the only way for a business or individual to better ones self is by the failure of another. This results in the lower class being desperate in decision-making but also opens the lower class to being taken advantage of. In the case of Myrtle Wilson, this is exactly the case. Tyson explains how “Tom Buchanan uses his money and social rank to purchase Myrtle Wilson” (67). Myrtle is a member of the lower class, so given the opportunity of an easy life full of money and freedom, she will do anything to obtain it. Tom knows this and takes advantage of Myrtle by using her for sexual desires. In a less specific example, Tyson explains a scheme used by the upper class to prey on the lower class. The scheme is done by selling fraudulent bonds. “All of the small investors who buy the fraudulent bonds will lose money that they can’t afford to lose” (72). This causes the small investors to lose all of their money while the rich get

In the example of Gatsby, however, his wealth came from engaging in illegal activities. As Tyson describes it, the American dream “must be a corrupt one” (71) as the only way Gatsby could emerge from the lower class was through illegal activity, which “deflates the image of the honest, hardworking man that the dream is supposed to foster” (71). So while lower-class citizens are led to believe that if they work hard enough, they will be able to rise out of poverty, the people in the upper class who the lower class strive to become, really only got to their position through immorality and corruption. Tyson goes into more detail on the matter in describing the relationship between Gatsby and Meyer Wolfshiem. One of Wolfshiem’s most notable accomplishments is that he was able to “fix” the 1919 World Series. This is the same man “who takes credit for giving Gatsby his start” (72). This example furthermore shows the irony the capitalism on the American dream as realistically it is