Social Class In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Society and social class are aspects that deeply affected the way that people behaved/acted in 1920’s America. At one instant, while pondering and got lost in his own thoughts, Nick Carraway state, humans act in social settings and how they react psychologically. Everything surrounds social class and its insinuations in the 1920s, leaving us with the question: how does a change in the people one surrounds themself with, either poor, middle class, or rich, effect the way they act introspectivally and also how they treat people outwardly. The idea of social class during the 1920s was astonishing, seeing how different individuals reacted when accumulating wealth or being born into in verses people thats money had not gotten to their head quite

At one point, while getting lost in his thoughts Nick Carraway thinks out loud saying: “No … I just remembered that to-day’s my birthday. I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade” (Fitzgerald 102). In this quote, Nick is showing that he has lost his focus, it is a common theme in the book that when moving to the West Egg from the Middle West individuals tend to get to accustomed at swept up by social class and a faster pace of life. Nick became swept up by everyone elses drama and began to lose his way. He also gets hyper focused on other peoples loves as shown in this quote: “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 59). Throughout the book Nick does so much for Gtasby and others and gets so intertwined with the drama of West Egg that really all he can talk about is Gatsby or the Buchanans. So to conclude, Nick Carraway was so inherently focused on social class and everyone elses situations that he ended up forgetting about important things that matter to

Gatsby has many secrets and things that we are unsure of because of his fixations of impressing people that is proven when Nick Carraway says: “He looked at me sideways — and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford,” or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before” (Fitzgerald 49). In this quote, Nick elaborates on Gatsby and how he was suspicious in the sense that everything he says just does not seem like reliable information that can totally be trusted. Everything he says also does not make any sense showing how much he is focused on class and impressing his “old sport” Nick Carraway, this is proven when he says: “What part of the Middle West?” I inquired casually. “San Francisco.” (Fitzgerald 49). This shows are further solidifies that Gatsby is focused on social class by telling Nick sotries about his past that do not make any sense. For example, above Gatsby says that he grew up in San Francisco while also saying it was in the Middle West, which is false. It is shown through Gtasby’s actions through that Gatsby really wanted to impress Nick for his own ulterior gain and not just because he wanted to be friends with him. To conclude Jay Gatsby was actually quite selfish in his use of people for his own personal