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Wealth Inequality In The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby talks a lot about society and class and about wealth inequality. The story takes place in the 1920's that was a time of great wealth and glamor for those that were in the upper class. The story takes place in places referred to as "West Egg" and East egg. The East Egg area is where the Aristocratic families live. These are the families that are wealthy and have been wealthy for generations. They are the old blood of society. Everyone knows them and they have many privileges and honors just because of who they are. They live by strict social expectations and are able to go to the finest schools and Country Clubs and hang out with other families that fall in the same social status. The other part of the same area is …show more content…

He is one of the new comers to wealth. He falls in love with Daisy that comes from one of the original families and marries Tom Buchanan who also comes from great wealth and privilege. He loves Daisy but most of all, loves her class and background. He feels like she has everything he has always wanted and deep down, doesn't think he deserves her and the society she belongs to. Gatsby and Daisy do not end up together because the war and school separate them from each other. Daisy is comfortable with the society she grew up with and marries someone who has the same background as she. Unfortunately, the world that Tom and Daisy belong to is one where you are constantly worried about "how you appear to others." Most of your decisions are based on prestige and wealth and being accepted by the upper class of society. In Daisy's case, she is even willing to allow her husband to cheat on her because if she loses him, she also loses her social standing and the wealth that allows her to live the lifestyle she is accustomed to. She doesn't have principles or standards of the heart as much an social standards. She uses the love of money and status to determine her directions. In contrast is Gatsby which follows his heart but also wants to be long to the world that Daisy is part of. It is hard to say whether he loves Daisy or the world Daisy belongs to and the one he wants to be part

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The story The Great Gatsby tells about the life of people from different social statuses during the 1920s. Jay Gatsby, the main character, is a very mysterious man. He is lives in West Egg, New York, and he is an extremely wealthy man. Gatsby is such a mysterious man because people don't really know how he acquired all of his riches. He did not come from a wealthy family, but he always had great dreams and expectations that he'd be rich someday.

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Daisy could have married the man that she truly loved if she was not wealthy. It is easy for a wealthy person to not care about other people and live an extravagant life. After he meets up with Tom, Nick declares, “... Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness... let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 179).

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Research has shown that the wealthiest eighty-five people in the world have more money than the poorest three point five billion people combined (Jackson par. 3). The life styles and viewpoints of these two classes of people differ by enormous proportions. One class will never have to worry about their finances, while the other may struggle to even buy food. These different ways of life can produce extremely different personalities for better or for worse. The unique personalities of the upper class are observed in the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, where the narrator, Nick Carraway, moves into a village called West Egg just outside New York.

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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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The Connection of Wealth and Personality in Fitzgerald’s Works In our society, money is seen as the most important factor in decision making and in our overall lives. This is shown throughout all of Fitzgerald’s works and in many of his characters. His stories continually mention the effect that money has on the community. In one of her criticisms, Mary Jo Tate explains that “[Fitzgerald] was not a simple worshiper of wealth or the wealthy, but rather he valued wealth for the freedom and possibilities it provided, and he criticized the rich primarily for wasting those opportunities.

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“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald speaks very stridently of “class”. He permeates clues and different sayings about how the bourgeois people talk and how they act among themselves. For example, “What’ll we plan?; What do people plan?.” Daisy had said this as a innuendo to her surroundings that the “rich” people that had so much money, have no idea what to do with their fortunes.

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Before an analysis of the disparity in the two deaths of Gatsby, it becomes necessary to first analyze the principal theme presented in the altered version of the work. Gatsby’s wealth and power as a construct of the man himself is foreshadowed near the beginning of the work, when the man with the owl rimmed glasses states, “Mr. Gatsby doesn’t exist,” (Luhrmann). The legendary man, even in the director’s rendition, is a construct devoted to the obtaining of a goal. As Gatsby says to Daisy in the film, “I didn’t want you to think I was just some nobody,” (Luhrmann). His means to achieve his end were just as extravagant in the eyes of Luhrmann; however, they may have been more justified in the film than in the text.

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It is true that Daisy had loved Gatsby once, but it was all in the past. After Gatsby left to go to war, Daisy fell in love with Tom Buchanan. The reasons why Daisy married Tom was part of her love for him and the other part is because she loves the social position she is in when she is with Tom. Gatsby failed not because he was killed, but because Daisy’s love for Tom can not be changed with material things. All of the main characters have ideas for the perfect life and none were able to achieve them.

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In essence, she cares so little about anything that she shows no feelings about the fact a person she loved getting murdered. Her gets perfectly stated by Nick: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 179). Daisy feels like that because she has so much money and is part of old money, no action can impact her. No matter what bad deed she does, people will fix it for her and she will face no

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The website wordpress made an article about the social classes in the Great Gatsby, talking about the differences and similarities that both social classes in the book have with each other, from the good things, to all their flaws. “All the characters do not suffer due to lack of funds in life, but from key dimensions within themselves”(wordpress, Poverty in Great Gatsby). All of the characters in the Great Gatsby have some form of funds in their life, but each of them are devoid of certain key aspects of their personality. One of them could have a lack of social wealth, such as Jay Gatsby. Everyone is wealthy and poor, and when this was brought out to the public when this novel was published, this redefined poverty, and wealth as a whole.

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