Social Inequity in 'The Motorcycle Diaries' and 'The Great Gatsby'

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Analyzing the different themes addressed in the books “The Motorcycle Diaries” written by Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, and “The Great Gatsby” written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald it is possible to find some topics in common, such as, the social inequity portrayed in both books. Although this social inequity is stronger and clearer in “The motorcycle Diaries”, it is also represented in some way in “The Great Gatsby” due to a marked stratification of people portrayed in the plot of this story. In the following lines, it will be analyzed how this social inequity is portrayed in such different books.

On the one hand, in Ernesto Guevara’s diary social injustice is easily detected, and portrayed in a quite moving way, both through some key incidents that were responsible for Ernesto’s new understanding of the world, and Ernesto’s words when narrating his own reflections about these episodes. Firstly, when Ernesto went to visit the sick old woman in Valparaiso, who suffered asthma and a heart condition, is a situation that gives a clear view of the poor reality that some people had to face everyday because they did not have even the minimum conditions to survive with dignity, and on top of that, the sadness of people turned themselves into a nuisance for their family just for the fact of being sick. Secondly, Ernesto’s encounter with the couple of communist workers harassed by their political ideas in Baquedano, who did not have a single blanket to protect themselves from the freezing cold of the desert night, enable us to see, as Ernesto wrote, the representation of the proletariat of the world. Moreover, this couple showed him the ruthless reality of so many people in Chile who were pursued, tortured and disappeared for their...

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...al ladder and to change her economic situation. Notwithstanding, this was not possible because as she and Jay Gatsby sadly discovered, no one will be accepted in such select group, “old money” people is not a group to which you can buy a membership, no matter how much money you have now, or which contacts do you have.

To summarize, both in “The Motorcycle Diaries”, which could be considered the starting point which inspired Ernesto’s future political fight, and in “The Great Gatsby”, probably Fitzgerald’s way to express his deception of seeing the “American Dream” completely corrupted and the loss of all moral values, it is possible to find social inequity portrayed in some way through either specific events, or by the way in which people are categorized into different groups, depending on their economic and social conditions, and presented to the reader.

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