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The Great Gatsby Foucault Lens Analysis

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The Great Gatsby - Foucault’s Lens Analysis The contemporary society we are living in today is quite similar to the prior society, as revealed by Michel Foucault. In his work, he focused on the illusion of control. Individuals feel the need to act a certain way when they feel as if they are being observed. This leads me to believe - those who are wealthy not only share this feeling but their actions are a result of being controlled by wealth. For instance, Foucault believed the feeling of being observed alters one’s behavior. To many, following rules in society defines you. It determines if you are “good” or “bad.” In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald created a high-class setting for his character that was full of money, sex and greed. …show more content…

The idea of living within a high class society and the illusion of control becomes appealing to many. Perhaps this is a tactic they use to lure more people to follow them? For instance, George Wilson’s wife, Myrtle has an affair with Tom Buchanan because she was attracted to his wealth and she dreamed of living a life full of excess. “The modern individual is produced by a power that individualizes precisely in order to better control (1470).” In this case, it is apparent that the wealthy individuals went to great lengths to acquire substantial wealth so that they could oppress the disadvantaged members to meet their societal goals. Furthermore, Tom and Daisy’s relationship is similar to the teacher-judge concept. “We are in the society of the teacher judge…each individual wherever he may find himself subjects to his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements” (Foucault 1499). Here, Tom is the judge. To Myrtle, he is the powerful one and she will adjust her behavior and ultimately abandon her marriage in order to receive approval from Tom. Therefore, power depends on knowledge that creates and categorizes

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People are partying. The word of money fills in the air. People being miserable everywhere. These events were the daily lifestyle of people living in the 1920’s. The 1920’s was a prosperous time for America after World War I because after the war, the economy raised people’s hopes of being in the upper class.

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They also attempted to shape thinking, to make acceptable difference in income that would otherwise be odious”(395). In economic and political fields, people who are in charge take advantage of the authority, in other words, the dominance to consolidate and bolster their superiority. They influence (or manipulate, to some extent) the public’s thoughts and convey the idea that the difference in income is reasonable and justifiable to the public. Both Ho and Stiglitz mention people’s desire to maintain and strengthen the status.

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Groups and individuals with that hold these resources use them to maintain power and social control. The wealthy are the independent variables that hold the power to make decisions and control how society is ran. The lower classes are the dependent variables that have little to no control over how society is structured. Conflict theorists encourage social change. Instead of allowing the “well off” to force social order on everyone else, the general public should fight for social change even at the expense of a possible social revolution.

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1421 Words | 6 Pages

Daisy shows her struggles with the social status of women through her daughter and relationship with Tom. Jordan proves that being a “new” women of the 1920s comes with a price of judgment and accusations of dishonesty. Myrtle seeks to become a member of the

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792 Words | 4 Pages

While talking about her relationship with her husband, Myrtle says, “The only crazy I was when I married [Wilson]” (Fitzgerald 35). Though Myrtle is talking about her husband, Wilson, her comment also reveals an important dynamic of the relationship between Tom and Myrtle. Myrtle reveals that she regrets marrying her husband because he had little money. This regret shows itself through the relationship between Tom and Myrtle. Tom, a wealthier man, holds a greater status and power than Wilson, a poorer man.

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747 Words | 3 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby describes the life of Jay Gatsby in the 1920’s. The novel shares his love story and his loneliness. A major question the author raises is how does wealth impact class structure and society? Fitzgerald answers this question through the distinction between “New rich” and “Old rich” and the significance of East and West Egg.

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1514 Words | 7 Pages

Whether or not it came from the society they lived in at the time or just the era of the 1920ś which was a time of excess with little repercussion at least for the remainder of the decade. The illusions that people saw in the book arent super far fetched since you're not in on it it's easy to look down upon it.. As the characters turned their own fiction and false realities into their own reality these people created a life of sadness and despair that they had no way of getting out of. Overall The Great Gatsby is a story about human nature with a couple twists and turns in it to make it interesting, and with that human nature it showed how power and money could corrupt somebody to the point they're not even living on the same planet as the rest of everybody.

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These types of men claimed to benefit the society most in these positions of power because, due to their wealth, policies did not affect them personally – they were so rich that essentially nothing could threaten them. This, the rich men claimed, gave them an unbiased perspective on what was best for the whole of the country. “The people” have always been an ever-changing group, as Hamilton noted at the Constitutional Convention, giving their desires a more temporary focus – not the long-term stability desired by the elite for this new republican society.

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“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man 's needs, but not every man 's greed.” As humans, we work hard in order to have the greatest opportunity to succeed in life, which will fulfill our wants. F Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, utilizes effective language and punctuation in the text, which helps him accomplish his purpose: Illustrate what material goods does to a society. From a rhetorical standpoint, examining logos, ethos, and pathos, this novel serves as a social commentary on how the pursuit of “The American Dream” causes the people in society to transform into greedy and heartless individuals.

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2003 Words | 9 Pages

The theme of carelessness represented by Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan, and Daisy Buchanan is crucial for the development of the plot of this novel. Myrtle Wilson is a prime example of carelessness within the novel. She knows that Tom is a married man, and is very violent, yet, she continues to see him. Myrtle is focused on what

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1890 Words | 8 Pages

Ambitions: Myrtle and Daisy had chased both love and money, at different point in their life. For both of them, it is their ambition and dreams that they seek to fulfill themselves with. Regardless of their backgrounds, they remain the same in their wants towards something they don’t have, or in Daisy’s case, choosing what they want over everything else, regardless of how much they already have of it. Myrtle had married Wilson, not for the money he had owned, as he did not own any, but simply because she “thought that he was a gentleman”. However, Myrtle’s ambition was money, because when Wilson neither produced riches nor at the very least, gave her the love initially wanted, she turned to Tom to receive them both.

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The wealthier one gets, it seems, the more one rationalizes their decisions and actions. The more one stains their morality little by little until they no longer need to choose what’s right and wrong but what benefits them. Whether it’s right or wrong is then irrelevant. From people to companies, wealth is the source of

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Finally, these women proved to be fairly similar in their particular role in life to achieve happiness. Myrtle desired to live the same life that Daisy did: she wanted a life full of money. Myrtle lived her dreams in the small apartment that Tom kept for them in New York. When Myrtle changed her dresses, at the same time she was also changing her ‘fake’ characters. In some way, she achieved her goal, she ‘reached her dream’ for an afternoon, a better lifestyle, a life like Daisy 's. There was a big difference between Daisy and Myrtle but one thing was common, their unhappiness.

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1399 Words | 6 Pages

Myrtle is accustomed to living an underprivileged life where feminine power engulfs her, but Tom is too egotistical to allow Myrtle to speak with such authority to him. Similarly, Gatsby’s need for assurance from Daisy pressures her into revealing to Tom that she never loved him (Fitzgerald 132). Deep down, Daisy knows that she truly did love Tom once, but Gatsby’s assertiveness and persistence drives her over the edge to telling Tom that what the two of them shared meant nothing to her. Daisy’s attribute of being a pushover is revealed immensely because she refuses to stand up for herself. Daisy is used to enabling Tom to constantly control all aspects of her life, and that leaves her powerless in society.

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“Then wear that gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you” (title page). Throughout the novel, the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents Tom Buchanan as a very controlling person who believes he is entitled to many things because of his wealth. Similar to the quote, Tom’s constant need for wealth and power leads to a need and want for everything in sight. If a reader were to read this book through the Marxist lens, they would see an obvious struggle between the powerful and powerless and how that directly coincides with how much money the person with power has. The main character with power and wealth in the novel is Tom Buchanan, and he uses his control to gain power over others.

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