Gender Roles In The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: The conflict of socio economic classes in the great gatsby

Connor Haley
Ms. Shannon Welch
English 3 Honors
14 February 2018

Social Class and Gender Roles in The Great Gatsby In the Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays a surreal representation of life in the 1920’s by creating his setting to show the dark truth of social classes and gender roles by portraying the deprived people who work for the rich. We see this when the valley of ashes is introduced showing the lives of the poor then comparing it to the wealth showing Nick in Toms mansion. Scott Fitzgerald also shows the gender difference portraying females as only wanting to marry the rich by showing Myrtle be desperate for Nick and Daisy refusing to marry Gatsby because of his lack of wealth, this is shown though the characters differences …show more content…

The social classes are between the rich and the poor. The rich are commonly born into their wealth like tom was. Tom was also an example of old money which is the divide between people who were born into their wealth. New money refers to the ones who worked for their money and built their wealth in their generation like how Jay Gatsby work for his fortune. There two classes created a physical boarder between East Egg and West Egg. Old money is against new money because they believe that it was earned in a suspicious way. “About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said I'd been making a small investigation of his past.’ ‘And you found he was an Oxford man,’ said Jordan helpfully. ‘An Oxford mans!’ He was incredulous. ‘Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." (Fitzgerald 130). This quote shows the divide between both classes. Tom is saying that Jay Gatsby never went to Oxford because of the pink suit he wears which isn’t taught at Oxford because they teach you to act and dress like everyone in your class. The divide between the rich and the poor is even bigger then old money and new money. In the Great Gatsby money is typically born into and if you don’t have money you are destined to be poor and there is nothing you can do about it. “And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.” (Fitzgerald 43). This symbolizes how the poor are servants for the rich and how the rich are superior. “I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.” (Fitzgerald 3). In this quote nick implying that you are born into your class along with your emotions and personality. He is stating that you are born into your class and it assigns you a specific

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