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How money and class play a part in the great gatsby
How money and class play a part in the great gatsby
The great gatsby rich vs poor
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Imagine a life with more mazuma than cognizance of what could be done with; lights, fashion, and fame is the dream of many. Now, imagine living in penuriousness with just enough mazuma to sanction one's’ citizenship. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are two sides of a city that are split by how long the money has been in the family, and how much work was put into earning the money.. Even though there are few people who opted to live differently when residing in one of the different eggs, the East Egg is for the old sophisticated mazuma while the West Egg is for the incipient upcoming mazuma because those who opted to reside in the East Egg have grown up with money and those who opt to reside in the West Egg have just founded their money.
In every situation there is more than one side to every story, and in this case, the economical level. A person who has grown up with mazuma look down on those who cerebrate that not having an abundance of mazuma is an issue. “I told that boy about the ice.” Myrtle raised her eyebrow in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. “These people! You have to keep after them all the time” (69-70). Myrtle cerebrates that acting like a snob makes her sound fancy, and sanctions her to coalesce in with those who she endeavors to hang around, the ‘old money’ affluent people. Fitzgerald integrates this to his story to show his readers that high class people treat the lower class with disdain and leave those of the lower class feeling unworthy. Even if the bank shows the mazuma, those involved in the higher class must dress accordingly, otherwise others will not grace them with their presence and the same amount of deference as others recieve. “About Gatsby! No, I...
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... have a little reflected glamour.
Even though having mazuma is on one terminus of a ladder, Fitzgerald shows his readers in his novel The Great Gatsby that even the richest of people can be disunited and treated differently just because of the way a person gains the mazuma. The East Egg may be for those people who have been around mazuma since they could ambulate, and those from West Egg have now just commenced to found their incipient source of mazuma, either way they are both gaining mazuma however, there is a fine line between the true definition of affluent and having an erroneous verbal expression of being affluent. Fitzgerald shows the readers that there are many different cull and factors to be considered ‘truly rich’. Therefore no one is authentically affluent or lives the life of a ‘rich’ person.
Works Cited
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Homes can say many things about their owners and how they are in terms of their social position, life style, and their personality. There is Tom and Daisy Buchannan which live in East Egg and are new money and they have a very large house l. There is also Nick who lives in a very small house compared to the two houses on the left and right of his house and he lives in West Egg like Gatsby. Gatsby has a gargantuan house and unlike the Buchanan's, Gatsby has many parties for anyone to come. Everybody's own home describes their life style, social position and their personality.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrates the idea of the quote from Benjamin Franklin. The Great Gatsby tells the story of a tragic war for love, wealth, and power which Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan explore on their own. Fitzgerald sets the scene of The Great Gatsby in East Egg and West Egg. Newly rich people live in West Egg while those who inherit “old money” live in East Egg. East Egg and West Egg contrast the angle of old and new wealth. They help the reader notice the different divisions of the upper-class and the theme of the American dream.
Same Goal, Different Route in The Great Gatsby A more thorough investigation of The Great Gatsby is necessary to uncover a well-disguised theme by Fitzgerald in this work. Upon a simple read through one would probably not notice the great similarities of Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson, but the two characters seemed to have the same agenda for their lives. While Gatsby took the route of acquiring money at all costs to join the upper class of society and to be acceptable in the eyes of a woman, Myrtle chose to make her way up in society at the cost of her marriage by attaching herself to money. The underlying question is who had the most success. As a young man, Jay Gatsby was poor with nothing but his love for Daisy. He had attempted to
The East and West Egg are two opposite parts of Long Island. The East Egg is where people of old money reside, like Daisy and Tom, who have inherited the riches of the aristocracy. However, the West Egg is the home of the nouveau riche or new money. It is where Gatsby and Nick reside, who have accumulated great wealth on their own. Fitzgerald contrasts these two places and the characters from each Egg to highlight the cultural clash in the 1920’s between old and new money and the contrasting theme of corruption and morality.
“Two unusual formations of land,” located not far from the bustling city of New York, “identical in contour” and yet differing in apparently all other aspects, provide the main setting for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby (4). On one side lies West Egg, the garish center for the newly rich, teeming with low-lifes and criminals. Across the bay lies East Egg, the more “fashionable” home of the idle rich, where the wealthy elite live in carefree luxury, safe from scandal and worry (5). At least, that is the image that Fitzgerald attempts to portray in his quest to reveal the corruption and infallibility of society. However, the discrepancies in his argument are obvious under further examination, for even while he labels West Egg inferior, highlighting the vulgarity in construction and society, Fitzgerald inadvertently reveals the inadequacies of East Egg, thus undermining his entire theory and leaving the reader wondering if all of society is corrupt or if there is some hope for the world.
Many forms of literature portray conflicting or contrasting areas in which each place has a significant impact on the story. These opposing forces add to the overall theme, symbolism, and meaning of the story. In the ‘Great Gatsby’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, these areas are the ‘East Egg’ and the ‘West Egg’. To illustrate, the East Egg represents the former or classic establishment. It consists of wealthy families who have handed down money from generation to generation.
In Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the city of New York possesses a “transitory” and “enchanted” quantity, which “for the last time in history” rivaled man's “capacity for wonder” (182). New York City, a symbol of American greatness and the American dream, contains very unamerican class distinction: those whose families have been prominent and rich for decades function as a de facto aristocracy, looking down upon and controlling (through vast wealth) the poor. These class distinctions are mirrored by geography, dividing up the maps into regions by wealth. The parallelism of the region and the residents results in the region symbolizing the residents. Through analyzing both the residents and the description of the region, a holistic understanding can be gained about the residents of Valley of Ashes, East Egg, and West Egg.
In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author tries to show you that wealthiness is a luxury not the American dream.
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.
During Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it is apparent to be an absurd time for the wealthy. The shallowness of money, riches, and a place in a higher social class were probably the most important components in most lives at that period of time. This is expressed clearly by Fitzgerald, especially through his characters, which include Myrtle Wilson, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and of course, Jay Gatsby. This novel was obviously written to criticize and condemn the ethics of the rich.
In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, all the characters are, in one way or another, attempting to become happier with their lives. The characters in the novel are divided into two groups: the rich upper class and the poorer lower class(West egg and East egg) though the main characters only try to make their lives better, the American dream they are all trying to achieve is eventually ruined by the harsh reality or life.
Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, there is a constant theme present: social class. Fitzgerald makes a connection between the theme of social class, and the settings in the novel for example The Valley of Ashes which is described as a “desolate area of land” (p.21) and a “solemn dumping ground” (p.21) which is where the poor people live. The Valley of Ashes is situated between West Egg and New York, West Egg being the place where the aspiring classes are situated, which is the “less fashionable of the two” (p.8), this is where Gatsby lives. West Egg is the place of ‘new money’, Fitzgerald shows this by the idea of the main character Jay Gatsby, rumoured to be selling illegal alcohol (prohibition) which means he is quickly making vast amounts of money.” Who is this Gatsby anyhow? Some big bootlegger?”(p.86) Gatsby shows off the amount of wealth he has by his fabulous parties and oversized mansion. “There was music from my neighbour's house through those summer nights. In his enchanted gardens, men and girls came and went like moths, among the whispering and the champagne and the stars.”(p.33) Fitzgerald uses the word ‘enchanted’ to paint a visual picture of what the house and the scene looks like, a magical and enchanted castle, with elegant furniture. This is in comparison to East Egg where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live, in a house where “The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside” (p.10). East Egg being the place of ‘old money’ which is made from the inheritance of their past generations, the people who live it East Egg are mainly well educated, historically wealthy and live quite elegantly, but they are also quite ‘snobbish’. Gatsby’s background does not fit into the social standards of East Egg...
The first location, West Egg, correlates to a person who is dazzling and extravagant. A person who became rich and possesses new money just like people who live there. The person who corresponds to West Egg is Jay Gatsby. Both the location and person symbolize the rise of the new rich alongside the conventional aristocracy of the 1920s. Previously, only people who were born into their riches were generally part of the upper class. Social mobility was difficult for those in lower classes because the “old rich” who maintained their prosperity across many generations retained control. During the 1920s however, people were starting to acquire their wealth within their own generations giving themselves the name “new rich”. Gatsby is an example of a person who constituting his own fortune after belonging to a lower social class and economic stratum. Gatsb...
Coming from a bird’s eye view, “twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by courtesy bay” was what they saw (9). From this point of view, the two areas of land are physically the same, with huge mansions and rich people. “They are not perfect ovals-like the egg in Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end- but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead” (9). The only true difference among the Eggs lies in the minds of the people living in the East and West. Because they are separated by Courtesy Bay, no matter how hard Gatsby or Nick tries to become and East Egger, it will not happen. At one of Gatsby’s lavish parties, Nick met a professional golfer named Jordan Baker. ““You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously (15). Jordan Baker shows contempt and already views Nick differently just because he lives in West Egg. This quote helps captures others in response to the American Dream. People that lived in East Egg did not think a person in West Egg’s wealth was legitimate. Most people that were born into wealth had a harsh perception among the people that wanted to be like
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of wealth in The Great Gatsby as a criticism of society at the time. From the start of the novel readers are presented a negative impression of the rich, portrayed as being arrogant and judgmental: “Whenever you feel like criticising anyone… just remember that all the people