Wealth inequality is the unequal distribution of wealth among people of the lower, middle, and upper classes. During the 1920s, the top one percent owned about 50% of America’s wealth, whereas today it decreased to about 40% (Anderson). That being said, geography can also impact the way wealth is distributed. For example, Coronado can be considered as a wealthy neighborhood, but across the bridge in cities like Barrio Logan, the level of wealth is not nearly the same as it is in Coronado. Wealth inequality along with geography plays a major role in the novel, The Great Gatsby. The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald distinctively creates three specific groups, “the old money”, “the new money”, and people with no money to further emphasize how American society in the 1920s revolved around the idea of elitism. For instance, people who live in …show more content…
Long Island live a rather easy, comfortable lives and seemed to control everything, while residents of the Valley Of Ashes work very strenuous and exhausting jobs, but barely makes enough money to put food on the table and they hardly influence society. As seen in the world created by Fitzgerald, the actions, goals, lifestyle and personality of each character are influenced by their social status, whether their old, new, or no money and the area in which they reside. Decisions and action taken by each character all depends all how wealthy they are and where they come from. The majority of the characters in this novel live either on East or West Egg. East Egg is where people inherit their wealth, whereas West Egg is where people earn their money through hard work. On the other hand, the men and women who inhabit the Valley of Ashes work demanding jobs but they hardly make any money and they rarely move up the social hierarchy. The residents of East Egg never make lifelong decisions and they always choose to live in the moment. Furthermore, they never have to think about their future because they will always have their money to retreat back to when times get tough. They only take the easy path in life and they do not care about the well beings of others. This is evident when the upper class attends Gatsby’s party only to eat his food, drink his alcohol, and wreck his house, but they never take the time to meet the host, instead they spread rumors about him. After the party ends, a car accident occurs because the driver was drunk. “Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel,” (Fitzgerald 53). This scene further emphasizes how careless the upper class is. The goals and aspiration of each character relies on their societal status and their fortune, whether it was inherited or earned. The sole purpose in life of East Egg natives are to acquire more money and buy luxurious goods to symbolize how wealthy they are. Moreover, they always try to find a way to become superior to others. A notable example occurred when Tom Buchanan expressed his white supremacist ideologies at the dinner party. “ ‘Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’... if we don’t look out the white race will be-will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.’ ” (Fitzgerald 12-13). He makes it seem that society functions best when the white race is dominant and people of color is subordinate, when in reality a lot more things can be accomplished when all the races work together. Not only does this prove that he is racists, but it also highlights his elitist views of life. East egg characters are also very materialistic, especially Daisy and her friend Jordan. Gatsby who is from West Egg has a completely different motive than the majority of the characters in this novel. His one and only goal in life was to win back Daisy’s love. Many would question Gatsby’s ethics and morals for going after a married woman, but his actions are absolutely justified mainly because their is no love connection between Daisy and Tom, the only thing keeping them together is money and materials. He dedicated his entire life to become wealthy and to be worthy of her love even if it means being involved in criminal acts. The lifestyles of each character are directly linked to whether their upper or lower class.
Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and the rest of the people with “old money” live a very pleasant and simple life because they never have the fear of not having enough money for basic human necessities like food and shelter. They also do not have to put much effort in their jobs because all their wealth was inherited. Fitzgerald utilizes the color gold when describing Tom and Daisy’s house to symbolizes the prosperity and wealth they possess. “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay...The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold” (Fitzgerald 6). The gold represents success and white represents innocence and purity, while the color red can be interpreted as an expression of anger and violence slowing lurking into their lives and can represent the intolerance of Tom. On the contrary, Gatsby, Nick, and the lower class earn their living by working hard. Unlike East Egg, they did not receive an enormous amount of money from their
families. The social status of a person helps form the qualities and characteristics that make each and everyone of them unique. The common personality between Tom, Daisy, and Jordan is that they are all careless and selfish. Tom treats Daisy like an object and he always feels the need to be the one in control. Daisy only cares about her societal status and materials. In addition, if an event interfered with her status, she would always retreat back into her money and she would isolate herself from that altercation. Similarly to Tom, she expects other people to clean up the mess they created. After Nick meets Tom for the last time, he concludes, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 179). In contrast, Gatsby truly has genuine emotional feelings like love and kindness. He loves Daisy so much that he is willing to sacrifice himself and practically do anything if the results are in her favor. After Myrtle’s death, he was willing to take the blame for the accident because he did not want Daisy’s quality of life and social status to be destroyed by this incident. What is truly depressing is that she does not even show up for his funeral even though he dedicated his entire life for her and he essentially saved her life and public image. The actions, goals, lifestyles, and personalities of each character in this novel were all formed depending on their societal rank and if they had old, new, or no money. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes these three groups to criticize each other. He emphasizes a pattern occurring in society where the rich mistreats the poor, while the lower class work grueling jobs with hopes that one day they will move up the social ladder.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald relates to the current event video in a few ways. It applies to the reading of Great Gatsby because of the idea of affluenza; which is a way of saying that somebody was raised wealthy and with privilege, and had no consequences for bad behavior, so they do not know how to act or make the best decisions in the real world. Daisy specifically relates to this because she was raised very wealthy and even married wealthy to keep living her luxurious and privilege filled life. “For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras…” (151). She even got away with killing Myrtle because her and Tom were wealthy enough to just disappear, and
In the book, money symbolizes a social evil as it destroys lives of people corrupted by wealth. In the first chapter, Fitzgerald treats money as if it was a cookie cutter for social classes and tells how wealth divides the society into different groups. For instance, East Eggers have "inherited money" whereas West Eggers have newly acquired money. Tom is an example of an East Egger who has "prestigiously" inherited quite a lot of "old" money. Gatsby is a West Egger who by boot legging, swindling and doing favors for others, has acquired "new" money.
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.
Tom having an affair with a middle class woman was a huge class difference. Also Daisy will not leave Tom to be with Gatsby because even though Gatsby has money he is not seen as high class. Gatsby lives in West Egg not East egg so he is not as classy as Tom and Daisy. Daisy doesn’t care that Gatsby had changed from the poor man she once new because she thinks that Tom’s old money is better than Gatsby’s new money. The rich seem to be unified by their money. There are also several class differences. There are the characters like Daisy, Tom, and Jordan who were born into wealth. Their families have had money for many generations, hence they are old money. The novel portrays this because people of old money do not have to work, they just spend their time fascinating their selves. They impose a distinction on Gatsby where his life is not based on how much money he has, but where his money came from and when it was received. In Daisy, Tom, and Jordan’s eyes they think he can’t possibly have the same sensibility, taste, and refinement they have. Gatsby may have money now but in their eye he once was poor so he can’t possibly be anything like them. They believe the people with new money cannot be like the ones with old
Through his vivid depiction of the valley of the ashes in the acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the truth about 1920s America: economic prosperity did not guarantee happiness and resulted in depreciating conditions for those that were not able to connive their way to the top.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of goals suggest that Fitzgerald believe that obsessiveness and constant desires often lead to a wrong psychological impact, destructive of one’s traditions, morals, and would have an unplanned end of the lesson or life.
Conclude ideas that are related between the great Gatsby & modern society and say how things have changed over time
Wealth can be a noble thing or a dangerous thing, depending on who does what with it. In The Great Gatsby, the wealth of Jay Gatsby was used for a multitude of reasons, the main one being to get the attention of Daisy. In contrast, the Joad family’s wealth, in The Grapes of Wrath, was staying together throughout the loses and hardships. One of the aims of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was to show how money and materialism could change a person again and again until they were hardly the same person anymore. In comparing their work it is clear that Fitzgerald and Steinbeck felt that materialism changed people for the worse. While both of their novels deal with wealth and poverty, each novel conveys its message from a very different perspective-
The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.
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.
The quote, “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” by Enrich Fromm truly describes the effect greed can cause others. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald and the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare various themes are shown throughout. One of the most important themes is greed for wealth and power. These works focus on the impact greed for wealth and power causes on the main character and how it affects their relationships with others. At first, these characters are so infatuated by what they want that they do not realize the harm they are causing. However, as these works continue each character reaches a moment of epiphany realizing how
In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class.
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.
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...
Yellow is the color of gold, which symbolizes money, materialism and high social position relates to Gatsby, Daisy and Tom and it reveals something common among them which is money. The gold, which the most valuable metal in the world, are the metal of the old money before the paper money has been created and turn out to be green as the dollar nowadays. So, the golden color is symbol of upper-classed people who have money and wealth all along of their life, who doesn’t taste the bitterness of poorness. Daisy and Tom correspond with those high-classed people in their century. They live a luxuriant life, enjoying their wealth and money.