Examples Of Social Stratification In The Great Gatsby

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PORTRAYAL OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN THE GREAT GATSBY At the turn of the 20th century, there were big changes happening in the society of the United States. Industrialization and capitalism opened the doors for a larger mass of people to accumulate more wealth. This accumulation of money meant that suddenly a bigger group of people belonged to the upper class. Consequently, the old classification was not distinguishable enough anymore. Social stratification, which is a socioeconomic phenomenon where a society categorizes people according to their income, wealth, education, power and social standing, has been present for most of human history. In this essay, I will present the differences between the classes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, especially the ones between the newly established and the per-existing upper classes and how they differ from other classes of the society, especially the lower class. In A Classical View, Aristotle wrote that there are three elements in a state – one very poor class, one very rich, and a third one, which is a mean (Aristotle, 1). It is quite apparent, even at the beginning of the novel, that …show more content…

“We walked through a high hallway into a bright rose-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up towards the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as the wind does on the sea. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon” (Fitzgerald,

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