Social Class In The Great Gatsby

The Roaring Twenties was the beginning of a new era for Americans as the economy grew rapidly due to high demands of consumption, which offered the golden opportunity for people to rise up the social pyramid from the lower to the upper class. One example of the social class rising dream is the striving love for Daisy from Gatsby. In the first past five years, the dream is unachievable, and even as it has a higher possibility to be fulfilled later on, the hope is finally demolished once Daisy decides to choose Tom over Gatsby, a similar situation for most Americans trying to obtain materialistic items, but ultimately fail to achieve the dreams. F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrated in the American classic The Great Gatsby the difference in social

As Tom wants to introduce Nick to his new lover, they pass by a low class area, where “This is a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat to ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”(Fitzgerald 23). The description of the commoners is very negative, such as the color of the smoke is dark, and the adjectives - dimly and crumbling, are very insulting expressions to the working class. The description of “Valley of ashes” demonstrates the living environment and lifestyle are so poor for the lower compared to those for the higher class, and the dirty state does not not only describe the appearance but also the personality of the lower class. Likewise the struggling lower class demonstrated the difficulty to compete with the higher class, as seen in 1929, when Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd wrote Middletown: A Study in American Culture demonstrating “The first duty of a citizen is to produce”; and later, “The American citizen’s first importance to his country is no longer that of citizen but that of consumer. 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