Theme Of Racism In The Great Gatsby

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ETHNICITY
As mentioned before, racism was a subtle yet growing epidemic throughout the United States during the 1920s. Fitzgerald paints the images of subjectively five successful individuals who ultimately have achieved the American dream, yet with regard to their background Fitzgerald doesn’t include other ethnic groups besides the predominant white race. Yet here, one could question where Fitzgerald stands on the issue of racism; does he believe the race serves as an advantage towards the American Dream or barrier to success? Using seemingly white-supremacists Tom Buchanan and ambiguous, Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald quarrels with the idea of ethnicity and how it’s included with acquisition of the American Dream.

The framework in which Fitzgerald chose to depict Tom Buchanan, is similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan, who strongly supported racism against the blacks. While some of his statements were never blatantly disrespectful towards the blacks, the majority of his statements …show more content…

If Gatsby manifests his future and his past to pave the way towards his future, does this follow the tenants of the American Dream? Puzzled by Fitzgerald’s purpose behind Gatsby’s ambiguity, literary analyst Adam Meehan comments “Either his parents actually were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” who he never really accepted, or else he fabricated the account and, in doing so, refuses to accept whoever they really were”(Meehan 79). On the other hand, Meehan fails to recognize the poetic justice behind Gatsby’s character. Through Gatsby’s lack of ethnic heritage or racial association, his character can embody the qualities of anyone. Fitzgerald, thus comments people have ultimate control over how they perceive themselves. Since Gatsby did not associate himself as a “Nordic” or “farmer”, he is driven closer to the future he wanted for himself without the barriers of an ethnic identity stopping

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