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The working class in the great gatsby
The great gatsby narrative perspective
The great gatsby narrative perspective
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The Roaring Twenties, known as the decade of the 1920s in the Western World, consists of dramatic changes in social values. The cultural differences between the 1920s and the Victorian era changes people's behavior, where they become more free-will, youthful and carefree, despite of being more conservative before. People are more open-minded and found satisfaction through the “open pursuit of sex, money, and booze” (Berman 53) as they suggest their wealth and status in the society. New York City had become one of the cities where materialistic wealth has become the key of happiness and the standard to judge people's success, further leading Americans to pursue each other in a negative, acquisitive way. Through the different scenes and characters of the famous novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores how the society twisted the original idea of
Breaking Social Boundaries The era of the 1920s was a pinnacle time in American History and the literature that was produced from this era showcases the social change happening. This was the time of social upheaval where the people were challenging social boundaries. The values that had been sought after in the period before this were becoming less and else prevalent in the new society. There are many viewpoints of this time period so the literature of this time was very diverse and many works showed the changing cultures.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is persuaded by gendered norms of the 1920s that expected men to prioritize financial success over all else, and in particular, over the love for a woman. He is a commentary on the friction between societal expectations and personal happiness. Gatsby does everything right: he closes himself off from the woman he loves, Daisy, to become financially successful meanwhile, expecting to reclaim his lost love upon achieving the aforementioned material success. Through the character of Jay Gatsby, the novel illustrates societal pressures for men in this period and how a narrow interpretation of success could ultimately undermine the attainment of a successful life defined more broadly.
The impact of socioeconomic status can be examined through a myriad of lenses. F. Scott Fitzgerald aims to show the relationship between socioeconomic status and power. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Tom’s character shows that socioeconomic status is equivalent to power within the novel. Tom puts great pride and emphasis on his socioeconomic status and wealth.
The 1920’s also famously known as the Jazz Age was a period of economic prosperity and shaking up social mores. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes characters, symbols, and motifs to illustrate the themes of love, marriage, and wealth to describe how the 1920’s was an era of social norms being broken. First of all, the theme of love blindsides people to see the truth. For instance, Gatsby has been in love with Daisy for five years since he went into the military. Once Gatsby finally got to meet Daisy for the first “he literally glowed; without a word or gesture of exultation a new well being radiated from him and filled the little room” (Fitzgerald 89).
Society is constantly under the criticism of authors. Many writers seek to expose certain aspects of American society and their scorn of it. Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald are renowned for their work on this subject. In The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence, Fitzgerald and Wharton reveal their cynicism of the societal elite; they find the elite as a severe detriment to American society. Through symbolism and the characterization of their main characters, Wharton and Fitzgerald similarly depict the societal elite as depriving American society from a promising future by refusing to let go of the past.
Jay Gatsby lived the American dream he had it all money and power, but the one thing he did not have was true love. Throughout the novel Gatsby reminices on the past in hopes of rekindling the connection he once had with Daisy. In Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby morals are challenged through the use of flashbacks, symbolism, and irony in order to depict the dissimilarities between the social
Social classes are something so familiar but not so normal to many of us. In our world you are either rich, middle class or poor, that’s a social class in very simple broad terms but during the jazz era, social classes had a twist. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald took place during the roaring twenties “jazz era” and two very prominent social classes in this story were named the Old Rich and the New Rich. You see the old rich were the ones born into generational wealth and the New rich were the ones who made something of themselves and made themselves wealthy.
The Prohibition, cigarette holders, drop waist hemlines, and the tunes of jazz. What does each of these things share in common? While separate they are simply just things; together they represent one of the most illustrious decades in America’s history. The Roaring Twenties was a time of leisure and economic stability in the country. As seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, as more money was being made, the more individuals splurged whether in their business or in their everyday life.
The shift from traditional to modern values in the 1920s created conflicts among genders, hindering women from achieving the American Dream. Prior to the 1920s, traditional values were more conservative, and proper etiquette was more prominent in society. Traditionally, men also had more rights than women , who were mostly expected to be housewives. The 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote resulted in a shift towards more rights and equality for women, but traditional ideas still opposed these modern changes.
Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays power and privilege through the characterization of the working lower class society in order to showcase their inferiority during the time period. Set during the mid-1920’s the novel is set in New York which is mostly run by the actions of the people in Long Island - specifically East Egg and West Egg. Fitzgerald is able to not only depict the lifestyle of those of live in the poorer valley of ashes but also draw insight on how their lives are impacted by the actions inhabitants of Long Island as they are unable to build a life that could bear semblance to the American Dream The use of various literary devices enabled Fitzgerald was able to quickly distinguish between the
During the 1920s, America seemed to be a land of glamor and luxury. Underneath the beauty, however, was a vast underworld of crime: bootleggers and gangs ran rampant, controlling even members of the government. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he tells a tale of that decade, which appears glamorous but is filled with corruption. The novel makes a naturalism argument about the impossibility of changing social class, revealing that only a facade of mobility can be achieved through debaucherous actions.
The American Dream is the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success, prosperity, and social mobility through hard work, determination, and initiative. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby attempts to achieve social mobility but ultimately fails due to the constructs of old vs new money. An argument is shown that the American Dream is just that, a dream, and that happiness cannot be achieved through wealth. In the novel, the super poor are stuck in their social class, unable to move because they live in the valley of ashes, which represents poverty and the corruption and social decay that came with the lavish and careless lifestyles of the rich.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” This philosophy Ernest Hemingway proposed perfectly captures the idea of social breakdown in society, especially during the Modernist period in which he lived. In the 1920s, following the First World War, newly established amendments that provided women’s suffrage and enacted prohibition changed how Americans socially acted. These same social changes that break down society appear in The Great Gatsby, a modernist novel set in the early 1920s written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. Throughout the book, the people of the upper social class are represented in their own broken social lives.
Fitzgerald expressed that social class defines a person and their personality. You can’t escape the social class you were born into, and you can’t fake it either. Your roots will always show through. The overall message Fitzgerald was trying to send to the reader is to accept your social status and don’t take it for granted. Someone will always be better than you, therefore accept what you have and be
