Stereotypes In The Great Gatsby

The play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry follows a less fortunate African American family, the Youngers, on the south side of Chicago during the 1950s. The family comprises the matriarch Lena Younger (Mama), her son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, their son Travis and Walter’s sister Beneatha, who is waiting for a large life insurance policy check from Mama’s late husband, Big Walter. The novel The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald tells an account of the summer of 1922, in a town called West Egg, New York, through the narrative of Nick Carraway. Carraway is a young man who recently moved to New York to pursue the bond business and creates a connection with his neighbour Jay Gatsby. This mystifying but wealthy individual throws extravagant parties attempting to win back his old lover, Daisy Buchanan. Stereotypes of individuals are a large part of how the brain compartmentalizes the complex and busy world

Jay Gatsby is a character who has new money, and Tom Buchanan falls into the class of having old money. Jay Gatsby uses illegal means such as bootlegging, gambling and securities fraud. Gatsby’s activities get revealed in an argument with Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Tom states, “He [Gatsby] and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drugstores here and in Chicago sold grain alcohol over the counter” (Fitzgerald 78). Gatsby tries to use his illegal alcohol production to gain wealth, trying to establish himself as better than Tom Buchanan. He does this to try and win Daisy Buchanan, his ex-lover, back. Within that quote, Tom is also trying to show Daisy that his old money is superior to Gatsby’s new money. The two men’s actions portray the attempt at dominance over each other with their money to persuade Daisy Buchanan to be with