Elite In The Great Gatsby

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The story The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about the society surrounding the characters of the book. We, as a society, are just like these characters, even today, and even into the future. Whether it is like the people of the Valley of ashes desperately trying to look rich and be like the wealthy, the new money people and trying to be just like the plutocrats of West Egg, and the Plutocrats seeing everyone as beneath themselves. The common people of the world who are desperate to be rich are one of the reasons it will always be relevant. Myrtle is a fine example of this; as she is always getting new possessions, ‘I want to get one of those dogs’ (Fitzgerald, 31) being a great example of her quest to acquire things. This demonstrates …show more content…

Daisy and Tom Buchanan represent this in the novel, though there are numerous others that show this as well, some who even went to Gatsby’s Parties. Tom is more arrogant, obviously displaying he had never worked a day in his life, owning lower class citizens like they were slaves, and trying to push Gatsby out of the circle of the upper class. There is also this one sidedness where East Egg citizens were allowed to attend parties on West Egg but West Egg attending East Egg parties was indecent and a forbidden type of “Spectroscopic Gayety” (Fitzgerald, 49). The East Egg is seen as a place you can leave and return to, but never check-in to. The East Egg wished to keep their world to themselves and not allow anyone else to be a part of what they wanted. This is still true for that class, with those in the grand estates that were from their daddy’s money, that they are terrified of people climbing up the ladder to be their equals. An example of a Plutocrat today would be Kim Jong-Un, who borrowed off the success of his father, and has not very likely lived a life of work. To use something borrowed from the great Johannes Voets, “If people were just like them AND were richer, they would no longer have the power that they originally had. They want to stay the 1%, not the 5% or

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