Social Inequality In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

A given text can be comprehended as the author’s attempt to reflect their understandings of the world at large amongst the period of production. Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s didactic novel, The Great Gatsby, offers commentary on the flawed and rigid social dynamics during the Roaring Twenties era from the perspective of Nick Carraway. The novel observes Jay Gatsby, who longs to reunite with his love whom he had lost 5 years prior, Daisy Buchanan. His efforts display the juxtaposed standards between lower and upper classes and the American Dream’s disintegration. Published in 1925, Fitzgerald voices the injustices and power imbalances amongst the context of the Roaring Twenties, a period of unprecedented consumerism and prosperity; criticizing an egregious society fixated upon materialism, greed and false sense of happiness. The novel successfully articulates to a great extent the destructive attitudes and morals which society were placing their significance, condemning the flawed societal constructs, specifically the impacts of social inequality through the application of various literary techniques and language features which reveal the

The Great Gatsby’s insight on the flawed yet idolized American dream serves as a powerful commentary on the impact of social inequality posed against the lower classes within society. During the 1920’s period, there were huge disparities between the lower and upper classes, reinforced by the economic boom resulting in an increased wage of 22%, proceeding in a prominent increase in wealth amongst the elite. The employment of choice of diction within, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they had made” by Fitzgerald, reinforces the concept of a power imbalance between