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Social inequality in the great gatsby
Social inequality in the great gatsby
Morality in the great gatsby
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Marxism Theory In The Great Gatsby “Cash rules everything around me: CREAM, get that money dollar dollar bill y'all.” Once said by Method Man from Wu-Tang clan can reflect the roaring 20s where money was the fuel to society. Marxist Theory boils down to human interactions are economically driven. Now, applying a marxist lens to the Great Gatsby we can dissect the novel characters and scenes into a marxist approach. While reading the novel seems like a lot of the problems relate back to wealth and financial status, The Great Gatsby is focused on the theme of money and how it will necessarily affect one's life. Money, wealth and class are the base and fuel to how the story carries out, in the way which characters think, act, interact with …show more content…
This allows the narrator to see things objectively due to his standing in society. Getting the perspective of both worlds from Tom and Daisy representing the top of the hierarchy and have been in money for generations they represent old money. Then he gets to see and experience the lower class been represented by Myrtle and her husband Wilson. Then he meets Gatsby which started in a lower class but was able to move on up representing new money. The death of Gatsby changes nick and changes his perspective in society.” I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”(Fitzgerald 179). This making Nick move back the Midwest after he witness how shallow money can make someone as he witnessed how both East and West egg aren't capable of change. They are selfish and materialistic and Nick can't stand it anymore so he moves back home as he feels he has no place in New
During the time in our country's history called the roaring twenties, society had a new obsession, money. Just shortly after the great depression, people's focus now fell on wealth and success in the economic realm. Many Americans would stop at nothing to become rich and money was the new factor in separation of classes within society. Wealth was a direct reflection of how successful a person really was and now became what many people strived to be, to be rich. Wealth became the new stable in the "American dream" that people yearned and chased after all their lives. In the novel entitled the great Gatsby, the ideals of the so called American dream became skewed, as a result of the greediness and desires of the main characters to become rich and wealthy. These character placed throughout the novel emphasize the true value money has on a persons place in society making wealth a state of mind.
Jay Gatsby’s funeral is a small service, not because that 's what was intended, but because no one bothered to show up. Nick wanted to give Gatsby the popularity he desired, even in death, but only three people were present in the end. Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, shows up unexpectedly from Minnesota because he heard about the news in the papers. He believes that the man who shot his son must 've been mad, that no one in their right mind could commit such a horrible act. Daisy and Wolfsheim, the people closest to Gatsby in the book, do not attend. This exemplifies that it was always about wealth and social status for them, including Tom, and they never genuinely cared for Gatsby. Nick held up hope,
As depicted by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the 1920s is an era of a great downfall both socially and morally. As the rich get richer, the poor remain to fend for themselves, with no help of any kind coming their way. Throughout Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the two “breeds” of wealthier folk consistently butt heads in an ongoing battle of varying lifestyles. The West Eggers, best represented by Jay Gatsby, are the newly rich, with little to no sense of class or taste. Their polar opposites, the East Eggers, are signified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan; these people have inherited their riches from the country’s wealthiest old families and treat their money with dignity and social grace. Money, a mere object in the hands of the newly wealthy, is unconscientiously squandered by Gatsby in an effort to bring his only source of happiness, Daisy, into his life once again. Over the course of his countless wild parties, he dissipates thousands upon thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to attract Daisy’s attention. For Gatsby, the only way he could capture this happiness is to achieve his personal “American Dream” and end up with Daisy in his arms. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is somewhat detrimental to himself and the ones around him; his actions destroy relationships and ultimately get two people killed.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly evident, as his view of Gatsby’s actions seems to arbitrarily shift between disapproval and approval. Nick is an unreliable and hypocritical narrator who disputes his own background information and subjectively depicts Gatsby as a benevolent and charismatic host while ignoring his flaws and immorality from illegal activities. He refuses to seriously contemplate Gatsby’s negative attributes because of their strong mutual friendship and he is blinded by an unrealized faith in Gatsby. Furthermore, his multitude of discrepancies damage his ethos appeal and contribute to his lack of dependability.
Think about being separated from the one you love. You thought this person would be in your life forever and always. You may have spent days and weeks thinking and planning your future together, but then one day they disappear from your life. That person has moved on, and chose to live a life that no longer including you. It would be assumed in most cases that the love of your life is no longer the person they were before, so should you stick around and try to win them back? In the case of Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby did not realize Daisy would be different, and although he still thinks he is in love with Daisy, is he in love with her for who she is now, or the idea of everything she used to be the answer may shock you, and this is all due to the unreal expectations he has for her to fill. Because Gatsby is not in love with who she is at the time they are reunited. Instead, he is caught up in the idea of who she used to be. The actions of Gatsby, how he talks about her, and the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy once they are back together again show who Gatsby is really in love with, and that is the old Daisy.
The word visually stunning could be used to describe the 2013 Baz Luhrman directed adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless novel The Great Gatsby. Speaking of the director, I enjoyed his portrayal of the lavish lifestyle and carefree party like attitude in such a beautiful visual experience. The way in which the party scenes were filmed in the movie made perfect sense compared to the source material and were something I have never seen done by any other directors in a live action film. Another positive for me about this film was the soundtrack. When I first started watching the film I expected to hear old time music prevalent in the 20s. I however was pleasantly surprised when I learned the soundtrack was compiled by Jay-Z and featured many tracks I enjoyed featuring him either alone or accompanied by another musical guest. While Jay-Z is not exactly an accurate representation of the music of the 20s, the soundtrack adds a modern flavour over the previously mentioned beautiful backgrounds and architecture. The story however is where the movie at times falls flat. When stripped down to basics it is nothing more than a generic love story with a few twists added in for extra kick. The characters in the same vain can be very bland and not make you care much for them due to their backstories not being deeply explored. The only character that I found to be interesting was Jay Gatsby because of the mystical aura that surrounds his character at the beginning of the movie that leads you to want to uncover more of this ever mysterious man. All in all the visuals clearly outpace
The Great Gatsby “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored.
In, “The Great Gatsby,” we learn about many different themes and ideas that are presented to us in the book. The themes and ideas are presented to us through the results of the choices and actions that the characters make in the story, ranging from Tom’s adultery to Gatsby’s nostalgia. One theme Fitzgerald teaches to his readers, is that nostalgia (an extreme longing for the past) can cause many problems in a person’s life, through the use of several literary elements that are found within the story.
Benjamin Franklin once said “Money has never made man happy, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness." This is arguably one of the most cliché quotes of all time. If money cannot provide happiness, then what exactly can it do? The characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan open a door to a world in which money was the sole motivation for their success and the only reason for their power. When the reader uses a Marxist critical lens during chapter four of F. Scott 's Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the social hierarchy reveals how Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan utilize the importance of money and social power to manipulate others in their lives.
In the beginning of the story I did not know whose point of view it’s being told from, yet I do know that it is in first person. As I read further into the story I learned that Mr. Carraway, later known as Nick, was the one telling this tale. The author most likely wrote in this point of view so that I may be able to connect with the characters more fluently as the reader. As the reader I got to have a little more insight about Nick Carraway since in a way I am technically him. I learned that he believed, as his father, that life can be an unfair from the minute you are born. He fortunately for him was born into a “well-to-do” family (Fitzgerald 3). I also learned among many other life experiences of Nick that he was in World War I. After he
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an artificial world where money is the object of everyone's desire. The characters, the setting, and the plot are very deeply submerged in a Capitalism that ends up destroying many of them. Fitzgerald's criticism of Capitalism can be seen as a move to subtly promote Socialism, an ideology in which value is placed on the inherent value of an object rather than its market value. In a late collection of notes, Fitzgerald himself proclaims that he is "essentially Marxist." [i] Marxism is a specific branch of Socialist theory. Fitzgerald makes Gatsby a novel that is not inherently Marxist or even Socialist, but one that is imbued with Marxist theory. He does this by denouncing nonhumanitarianism, reification, and market value. Fitzgerald implies that the Capitalist system does not work because at the end of the novel, all of the characters that represent typical American Capitalism end up either dead or completely unhappy. Fitzgerald's criticisms work to warn 1920's Americans of their behavior and how destructive it can be.
Choose one of the following topics and write a well-organized essay with evidence supporting the statements you set forth. Your response should be two pages, double spaced with a 12 font in Times New Roman:
This book, The Great Gatsby, is a tale of deceit and the silent despair in the world of the human. Everything is not what it is made out to look like and often convincing as such. It is created by and creates the fear of being left in that portal which is the object of escape and the depths of despair. It shows life is a whirlwind which cannot be controlled, and many times even for the sick is not wished to be controlled because humans are too worrisome over what will and will not be and would rather turn their backs than face what is real. Distressing to look at and face but bliss to ignore and get on with the life which you know nothing about and never will know about because you are too stupid not to have the thought to want to know about. Humans do not do what is best for them and others only what will protect them from austerity, leading the path wide open for the dullness and loneliness they cannot find within themselves because yet again they ignore it with stupidity. This is a sad, pathetic, and rueful story showing the discontent and avarice that lies within the human mind. On the other hand, it shows the nescience, naiveté, and overall dullness of the mind who tries for something that is already to far gone to worry about, often the characteristics of the heart. The battle of the heart and mind is one that has and will go on for ages and is too petty of a matter to suffer over because if you let one or the other control it is much to easy to ruin yourself.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald took place in the 1920’s when the nation was undergoing rapid economic, political, and social change. Looking through different literary lenses the reader is able to see the effects of these rapid changes. The marxist lens reflects the gap between rich and poor while the feminist lens showcases the patriarchal society.
“I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality or speech just missed being absurd.” (48)