Social And Economic Disparity In The Great Gatsby

Marxism is the ideology created by Karl Marx which advocated for the destruction of capitalism in any society. This ideology first came up in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Marxism is the ideology that any form of superiority should not exist and has been tied to other social rights movements and ideologies. One of the most famous books to talk about this include “The Grapes of Wrath”, “The Great Gatsby”, and “Twenty Years at Hull House”. All three of these examples were written and published in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

In “The Great Gatsby” we see the protagonist, Nick Carraway, introduce the idea of social and economic disparity. Social and economic disparity is when a society has a substantial difference between

Jane Addams was a civil rights activists during the first part of the twentieth century in the United States. She alongside a friend named Ellen Gates Starr opened a community home in Chicago. The mission of the Hull-House was to provide housing and job opportunities for the poor and immigrants in Chicago. We see this when Jane Addams says, “I cannot see them without a bitter unconsciousness that it was at their expense I learned life cannot be administered by defined rules and regulations. (Addams)” In this quote Jane Addams is referring to some children living at the Hull-House whose father had died due to work conditions. The father of the children she is referring too died due to poor work conditions that many poor people had to face when working. These children showed Jane Addams that not every place of work offers the correct and that social and economic classes affect the conditions of life a person faces. This proves that uppers classes do not initially understand why an issue is an issue for those that are not of the same social or economic class. The man that died did so because of poor work conditions while working and Jane Addams did not understand why he continued to work. The man died after only a few days of working in the canal but he was able to provide money for his family while he was alive. The love and dedication that this man had for

In “To Kill a Mockingbird” the protagonist is a young girl named Jean Louise Finch also known as Scout. She has an older brother named Jem and she grows up in Alabama. During the events in the book Scout is surrounded by African Americans in a society that is openly racist and does not hide the fact that they are. We see this when Harper Lee writes, “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads- they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s word, the white always wins. They’re ugly, but these are the facts of life.(Lee)” This quote blatantly says that in a courtroom a white man’s word is more important than a black man’s word. This can imply that a white man could lie and still be considered the truth because the white man’s words are more valuable. This is a prime example of systematic racism and how some societies do not try to hide it. It is a well known fact in Maycomb County in Alabama that a black man’s word is not as important as a white man’s word. Since this book is about the trail of a black man who was accused of crimes in a prominently racist community and Scout was raised by a mostly anti-racism family we can infer that the story follows Scout’s controversial