Great Gatsby Response

The message that I would like to bring up from the written text the Great Gatsby is to give chance to others to grow. The Great Gatsby is all about social class in our society. I am aiming at a teenage and adult audience as I feel that there should be an understanding for others and not pushing them back but helping them to grow in life. The text type is essay writing. I have used a passive voice, complex expression, setting, simile, and theme and didactic to make this writing understandable for others to know the message that I would like to put out there.

The Great Gatsby is a novel by Fitzgerald, which is a meditation on the American Dream. The American Dream is an idea that anyone from anywhere, any class can do anything they want to,

the only limitations are personal ability and hard work which are opposed to the class system “of inherited privilege”. The social and historical setting of the Great Gatsby was central for our understanding of the author’s purpose, to illustrate the failure of the American Dream. The Great Gatsby was set in the 1920s in New York City and on Long Island. The three main settings are East Egg, West Egg and the Valley of Ashes. The author (Fitzgerald) uses these settings to portray the failure of the American Dream in the novel, and of the different classes in a society which was supposed to be classless.

As we all commonly know that class is divided by wealth, ownership, power, respect and different cultures, in the novel East Egg represents upper class, one of the most powerful owners, heads of most businesses, foundations and colleges, old money, “bright”, and “rosy”, the storied. East Egg is a symbol of shallowness, carelessness and corruption and the upper class tastes are luxurious but restrained. Let’s take Daisy as an example, Daisy lives her American Dream in East Egg with her husband, Tom, who is rich, has lots of money. Daisy has all the luxuries around her, but does not have any long-term aims in her life and she lives in the moment and does not think about what’s going to happen next. As Daisy, part of the upper-class prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they are never worried about hurting others. We could also see that Daisy has always had money as a part of her life and it has always been there, always has been a part of her life. This shows that high-class people have a greater chance of being in the same level and not dropping below their level, dropping down to lower class. Well, this means that upper class people are more likely to be better off than lower class people.

Fitzgerald also uses West Egg, where Gatsby lives.

It represents new money, which we call middle class people, which may not have as much as power over others, but do have control over their own destiny through commerce or land ownership, this is one of the largest class groups in the United States – because it is more than just income, it is mostly about lifestyles and resources. For example, Gatsby, which did not grow up with money like Daisy. Therefore, he does not know how to use or handle his money or how to use his higher social sphere. Gatsby often looks out longingly over the bay toward Daisy’s house. The water that separates them physically is symbolic of the social distance between them. The author portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy and lacking in social graces and taste. It shows that the middle class people don't really think that money is that important in life. They have a purpose to live, such as Gatsby’s only purpose was to get Daisy back, unlike Daisy and Tom which didn’t have any purpose of living and lived each day as it

came.

The Valley of ashes, West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes.

Which represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure, a symbol of wasted life. The Valley of Ashes is where the poor and working class live and it also symbolizes the color “grey” of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result. The whole valley is grey and covered in dirt, grime and ashes, and the people are treated like the garbage of the upper class. Tom goes there to be with Myrtle, whom he uses for his pleasure. Entering the Valley of Ashes, he must drive by the eyes of Eckleburg on the billboard, which represents judgment and his feelings of guilt. The eyes of Eckleburg are judging all the upper class who passes through for having rejected the lower classes and treated them so poorly and no matter how hard they’ll try to improve in growing, they will always be looked down at it and this is because of the class they come from. Another thing we could see is that even though lower class people don’t have much property, nor stock in the business, and are those that rely on their wages, they do have one thing that upper class people don’t have which is love and care for each other. Tom and Daisy had everything they could ever want in life, but that one thing that they

didn’t have is love, care and respect for others, which the lower class people had for each other.

Fitzgerald uses these settings to show social class and how it’s been divided in society. The American Dream was to show us that anyone from anywhere could do anything with their personal ability and hard work. The setting used was to show the ability and mindset of intervals which divides the society into three groups. Each of the three settings that was used in the novel shows us the purpose of why we have social class in our societies and this is also a way in which we could see the failure of the American Dream.