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Class Structure In The Great Gatsby

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The 1920s was a crazy time period in history - there were prohibitions and so much energy in cities. F. Scott Fitzgerald who authored The Great Gatsby, wrote about his view of this era and how it impacted him. The 1920s was such a party era due to WWI ending and loved ones coming home. Due to the war ending, not only were family and friends coming home but women and other races had to go back into their places. In the Great Gatsby, the main character Nick Carraway moves to one of the most energetic cities anyone could go to – New York City. It was time for a new start for him, job wise as he later became involved in the bonds. The class structures were very distinguished during and after the war. The hardest time for the classes were after the war. In the novel, Nick was very knowing of what class he was in because he spent a lot of his time with the upper class even though he was in the middle class. The levels of class structure in the 1920s was very distinct. You have to be what you are stereotyped as. That’s why in The Great Gatsby you were either in East or West Egg. In the novel and in this era, it was hard to come from the bottom to …show more content…

The point was either you have a bunch of money and you are spending it on whatever prohibition is saying don’t do or working to get by. One character, Wolfshiem, is characterized by the quote of his personality “I see you looking at my cuff buttons…human molers (72)”. He is a man who spends money on extravagant items. Gatsby is a man who would spend money on all things needed for a party but was in the lower class til he got to upper class. He got his money by “sold grain alcohol over the counter (chapter 7, The Great Gatsby). Another character is a man who grew up with money. Chapter 1 explains Buchanan “enormously wealthy – even in college his freedom with money was a matter of reproach (The Great

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Social classes represent the hidden structure of America, as well as in several other countries in the world. If one is unsatisfied with the social class they are born into, however, is it possible for them to change it? The answer is yes, they can, as per evidence from real life situations and from The Great Gatsby. Some might say that it is impossible to change the social class one is born into. In their opinion, if that person is born poor, consequently they will certainly die poor.

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After the suffering of World War I in the 1920s, many of the upper class Americans focused on filling their lives with endless joy and concentrating their energies on their own pleasure and comfort to forget about wartime memories. The 1920s era was were money had become the foundation of society due to the American dream, where everyone left behind their horrible past and centralized on becoming wealthy and being the most superlative. As a result, in The Great Gatsby through many rhetorical devices, Fitzgerald uses Nick Carraway as his persona in order to portray that money became too powerful and people became extremely selfish and greedy in the 1920s. For instance, through diction, Carraway adequately describes his disgust of the East in

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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925. The 1920s were known as the Jazz Age and even the Roaring Twenties. The girls of this time wore their hair differently and wore clothes often much shorter than had been seen. They tended to expose their legs and knees which shocked the older generation. The growth of jazz lead to new dances being created which further angered the older generation.

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Risk taking, ground breaking changes, and wild parties are all important aspects of the 1920’s. The massive parties that included dancing, alcohol, and a house full of strangers were so essential to this magical era that F. Scott fitzgerald made them a key element in his book, “The Great Gatsby.” These extravagant parties that Jay Gatsby was notorious for hosting, attracted strangers from all corners of New York to take part in these luxurious events. These parties were so popular and well known in the eastern New York area that they basically become Gatsby’s trademark. Upon hearing the name “Gatsby” guests did not visualize the face of a young man, but rather envisioned the wild parties he threw.

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In The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald, the book’s setting takes place during the post-World War I era when the Roaring Twenties take place. The main character, Nick, experiences the peak of America’s bustling and growing society, particularly in the heart of New York City. Beginning his journey by adjusting to such changes, where he imagines what he could do with others. He felt that his image of the city represented the reality he longed to be a part of. By contrasting the expectations and reality of New York City life, Fitzgerald exposes the city’s promise of excitement in order to warn aspiring dreamers from falling into the trap of the unattainable American dream.

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Gatsby then gets involved with the nightmare of the American Dream. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s perfectly as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. This novel shows the lack of social skills in newly made millionaires such as Gatsby that cannot even pick up on an invitation to lunch. This book was enjoyable to read because it set in when America was becoming an economic superpower and it was relatable in some ways.

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The biggest question remaining after the reading of the book is what is Fitzgerald saying about American society? Is Fitzgerald insulting American society? Fitzgerald’s main ideas of American society in The Great Gatsby are about social class and status. The majority of his comments towards these subjects relates to the cars, houses, and money that people have. How does Fitzgerald throw Gatsby into the book?

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In The Great Gatsby, social status is a significant element in the book as it separates the haves from the have nots. However more importantly, social status portrays the personalities of people belonging to different classes. In the end, you are stuck in the class you are born into, and attempting to change classes only leads to tragedy and heartbreak.     In The Great Gatsby, there are three main social classes portrayed. These are old money, new money, and no money.

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Throughout the course of the book, Nick starts off open-minded, but gradually becomes disgusted with everyone he meets. Nick saw mostly everyone only thinking of themselves and trying to pursue "The American Dream", a staple of the 1920s. The one person Nick liked was Gatsby, because

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The setting in The Great Gatsby is used mainly to paint a picture of the class differences in the roaring twenties. The people from all the social classes suddenly became aware of the class differences. It was evident that the social classes were clearly divided by location, amount of material possessions and the way one person acts. Throughout the story multiple examples of social classes were being inserted in The Great Gatsby, and how each social class was not found of the other. The American Dream is not all what is made up to be throughout this novel compared to portraying the different views of the objection of American Dream from then compared to now.

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The 1920’s was a very interesting time in United States history. After all World War I had ended and many Americans did not realize that the Great Depression was in the near future, so the 1920’s fell between these two dramatic events. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby teaches many morals, but none more important than the duality of the 1920’s. Duality is evident in Gatsby's dreams, his death, his lover Daisy, his wealth, and his parties, which all reflect the duality of the 1920’s. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald makes the concept of achieving the American dream seem improbable.

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Jay Gatsby, one of the main characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is a wealthy man with dubious sources of money; Gatsby is renowned in New York due to the lavish parties he holds every friday in his mansion. These are spectacles that fully embody the wealth and glamour of the roaring twenties, and are narrated through the eyes of another character Nick Carraway, an ambitious 29 year old man that recently moved back to a corrupt new york in a cramped cottage next to Gatsby’s palace. After admiring the careless behaviour of the parties from a distance, Nick gets a personal invitation to Gatsby’s next party, he promptly becomes infatuated by the extravagant and frivolous lifestyle the parties portray, along with the superficial

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