Elaine Grace Rasonable Ms. Matlen AP English Language 12 November 2013 Money’s Power to Segregate a Society In the novel Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the segregation of the society into different social classes in the 20th century. Fitzgerald uses vivid visualization of the settings of the East and West Egg and Valley of Ashes to represent the environment of the people from both high and low class. He also introduces different characters who eventually reveal their personalities and behaviors towards gaining and maintaining their wealth and power. Additionally, Fitzgerald focuses on the contrast between the “old money”, who are the people who automatically possess great affluence even before they are born, and the “new money”, …show more content…
Wilson, the low class, and the servants of Gatsby. He describes Gatsby’s mansion when he indicates, “The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard – it was factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion” (Fitzgerald 9). Fitzgerald expounds very thoroughly to clarify distinction between wealthy and impecunious people. Unlike the filthy conditions of the Myrtle and Mr. Wilson’s residence from the Valley of Ashes, Fitzgerald shows that Gatsby’s environment is very different from the needy people. He mentions that Gatsby’s mansion is very gigantic and very deluxe that it is comparable to the Hotel de Ville in Normandy. He even adds that it has a tower on its side and marble swimming pool to imply that Gatsby’s wealth is extraordinary and he is very opulent that he possesses these precisely luxurious features of his mansion. Fitzgerald shows a very huge distinction between the wealthy and the insolvent people, because compare to the “ash-like quality” of the houses of the Wilson, Gatsby’s mansion is beyond ritzy. However, unfortunately, these indulgent
Benjamin Franklin once said, “He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrates the idea of the quote from Benjamin Franklin. The Great Gatsby tells the story of a tragic war for love, wealth, and power which Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan explore on their own. Fitzgerald sets the scene of The Great Gatsby in East Egg and West Egg. Newly rich people live in West Egg while those who inherit “old money” live in East Egg. East Egg and West Egg contrast the angle of old and new wealth. They help the reader notice the different divisions of the upper-class and the theme of the American dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a jazz age novel demonstrating the corruption of humanity at the hands of material greed. Fitzgerald’s American classic is set on the opulent shores of Long Island Sound, where materialistic mansions pump out tainted souls like the not-so-distant factories spewing pollution into the city’s rivers. Whether new money or old money, Fitzgerald demonstrates that one is never free from the corruption that it brings. Jay Gatsby, a self-made man living on West Egg, lives his life in tireless pursuit of his dreams so that his material fulfillment will expunge years of poverty that his parents brought upon him. Gatsby lives the younger years
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the demise of the American Dream. Through greed, pursuit of empty pleasures and cynicism many characters throughout the novel realize that life is not always as luxurious as it seems. Based on the East and West egg, both communities live very expensive lifestyles.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby explores the issues of society and the hierarchy of social class. The three homes belonging to Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway, are all in the vicinity of each other, which illustrates the close proximity of their three lives, and foreshadows how they end up intertwining. Myrtle and George Wilson’s home is between the Buchanan’s and Gatsby’s, in the Valley of Ashes, and eventually comes to represent the failure of the American Dream. The homes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby represent the different characteristics of their dwellers. Gatsby is a man with a one track mind, while Nick is simple and sensible. The Buchanan 's are unashamedly opulent, while the Wilson 's are poor
Such is exemplified by Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson and Tom Buchanan. Their ambitions distinctly represent the class in which Fitzgerald is strongly associated. Jay Gatsby is a wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg, where the New Money lives. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night and represents the new rich that the old rich distaste. The new rich are described as vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social grace and taste.
A prime example of all that is displayed in the novel would come from the clear cut descriptions of the East and West Egg neighborhoods. Subsequently, the treatment of lower class citizens also paves the way in which this story is set, from one extreme to the other. Therefore, in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the capitalistic environment directly correlates to the socially and economically broken down society, and contributes to the division of wealth amongst
In The Great Gatsby, a classic American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Valley of Ashes, East Egg, and West Egg are the three main regions surrounding New York City, a “racy, adventurous” city that epitomizes the American Dream (65). A cultural revolution, illustrated by the motif of geography, is occurring at the time setting of the book—the Jazz Age or the “Roaring” Twenties (69). During these tumultuous times, the capitalist economy roared on, but economic inequality between classes also grew. Klipspringer sings during Daisy’s visit to Gatsby’s mansion, “The rich get richer and the poor get—children” (95). Each of these main settings represents an element of the societal hierarchy that emerged in America during the Jazz Age, and establishes the understanding of the characters that inhabit that region and fit that class.
In the novel “Great Gatsby,” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many characters work towards their dreams in order to escape from their current lives and origin. The novel takes place in Long Island and New York during the 1920’s. The narrator of this novel is a man named Nick Carraway, who moves to a place called “West Egg” and becomes neighbors with a rich man named Jay Gatsby. Across the bay is another place called “East Egg,” where Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom Buchanan live. During this time, wealth and class were a prominent part of a person’s identity. Without wealth or class, a person is restricted from certain privileges. Throughout the novel, Myrtle Wilson, and Jay Gatsby both are trying to reach their goals, but are faced with obstacles and barriers due to their lack of wealth and social status.
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism underlying and moral corruption society. The idea of the American dream is the ideal that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life,
The desire for high status in the 1920’s has a volatile impact on humanity. The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of a few American literature novels to draw distinct lines between socio-economic classes. The novel accurately depicts the people of this time period and displays their troubling actions. The high society class lives life with a disregard of the law and exhibits their ignorance. The people in the Valley of Ashes, or the lower class of humanity, are driven to despair. Meanwhile the middle class is portrayed as fair-minded with more fundamental decencies. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby presents the opulence of the higher class, the anguish of the lower class… and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates a variety of themes such as social class, wealth, greed, betrayal, and the American Dream. Among these, Fitzgerald develops the irony of wealth and social stature, while providing a quick glimpse of American life in the 1920s with the joy and sadness within each societal structure. Fitzgerald organizes his characters into distinct social groups showing how each group has its own set of problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of how wealth cannot be the sole cause of happiness. By creating distinct social classes, old money, new money, and no money, and representing them through the establishment of different living societies such as East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes, Fitzgerald is able to demonstrate the message of elite
The Great Gatsby was one of the wealthiest people at the point in time the movie was shot. The Great Gatsby was one of the richest men during the time of the movie, since he was making a lot of money on the job he was taking care of. Old money is the people that have worked for all their money and are very good at social skills. New money is people that are looked as if they don’t have near as much education as compared to people that are referenced to as “New Money”. The Great Gatsby was completely dealt around money and that was the main thing all of the actors was worried about during the movie.
In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American author, shows the idea that the newly developing class rivalry between “old” and “new” money, in West Egg versus East Egg, in the struggle between Gatsby and Tom over Daisy. He develops this claim by first introducing the “valley of ashes” as a picture of absolute desolation and poverty. The valley of ashes symbolizes the moral decay hidden by the embellishment of the Eggs, which suggests that underneath all of the embellishments there is still the ugliness of the valley. Next he uses a simile to describe all the people who (rich people mostly) came to his parties and what it was kind of like, “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and
Money from birth and money earned create a large gap between those with one over the other. Throughout The Great Gatsby, the comparison of old money to new money contributes to the conflicts and aspirations in the novel, enhanced by the author: F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story gives examples of each, and proves the significant difference between the two, creating indirect separation of the characters representing each side of wealth. Along with this, Fitzgerald provides the ideas that new money is scorned by old money people, while old money people expend their wealth without a care in the world. The difference between old and new money in The Great Gatsby creates a divide between the characters and their goals, proving that the economic
Henry David Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it”. For the avaricious, egocentric, and destructive characters of The Great Gatsby, their entire lives have been surrendered to the pursuit of wealth. Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald continues to be one of the most influential and widely recognized novels in American literature. It has served as a representation of the downfall of American society in the 1920’s for almost a century and continues to be criticized and analyzed for its portrayal of the upper class. Fitzgerald accurately embodies the American Dream of the time period and gives the readers a deeper understanding of some of the most problematic issues caused by class, politics, and wealth. Using unscrupulous characters, he depicts the road to self-destruction by way of materialistic and corrupt behavior. Although, on this path of inevitable demise, these characters not only manage to ruin their own lives, but destroy the