social classes essay great gatsby

Social Class in the Great Gatsby: an Unequal Society

This essay will examine the theme of social class divisions in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” It will discuss how class differences affect the characters’ relationships, aspirations, and the unfolding of the narrative. The piece will analyze how Fitzgerald critiques the American Dream and societal values of the 1920s. At PapersOwl too, you can discover numerous free essay illustrations related to Social Issues.

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Social class ripples through Fitzgerald's "Gatsby" like a current beneath glittering waters, steering characters toward their inevitable fates. This essay explores how social class divisions un-level the playing field, providing certain characters with undeniable advantages while leaving others at a disadvantage. By analyzing key characters and events, this essay argues that social class is a defining element that profoundly impacts the trajectory of the story and the lives of its characters.

Tom and Daisy's Recklessness

The recklessness embodied by Tom and Daisy Buchanan serves as a stark emblem of the upper class's insensitivity and detachment from the consequences of their actions. Need a custom essay on the same topic? Give us your paper requirements, choose a writer and we’ll deliver the highest-quality essay! Order now

The line, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made," encapsulates their irresponsible behavior. Their wealth shields them from the repercussions faced by those of lower social standing. For instance, their carelessness results in the destruction of Gatsby's car and life, Myrtle Wilson's death, and Nick's loss of innocence regarding the world around him. This reckless behavior is emblematic of a class that is judgmental and superficial, believing that their privileged lives are the only ones that truly matter. The unequal distribution of "fundamental decencies" at birth highlights how the upper class often perceives themselves as inherently superior to others, leading to a lack of empathy and accountability.

Nick’s Perspective

Nick Carraway provides a balanced view of wealth and class inequality. Raised in relative privilege, Nick is aware of the advantages he has had, unlike Gatsby, who struggles with his "new money" status. Gatsby's grand parties are not for his own enjoyment but rather for his guests, indicating his discomfort with the upper echelons of society. Nick's father's advice—"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone... just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had"—serves as a moral compass for Nick, reminding him of the pervasive social inequalities. Despite being part of the upper class, Nick distinguishes himself through his principled demeanor and capacity for empathy. His character stands in contrast to Tom and Daisy, illustrating that wealth need not strip individuals of their humanity or ethical grounding.

The Unfolding of Tragedy

The tragic events in "The Great Gatsby" cannot be divorced from the implications of social class. Daisy Buchanan's hit-and-run accident, where she kills Myrtle Wilson and leaves the scene, underscores the callousness of the upper class. Daisy's social standing insulates her from the legal consequences that an individual of a lower class might face, showcasing the disparity in justice. Her lack of remorse, coupled with Gatsby's willingness to take the blame, further illustrates how social class dictates the characters' moral compass and actions. Furthermore, Gatsby's longing to recreate the past with Daisy reveals his inability to escape the rigid boundaries of class. Daisy's desire to maintain her current lifestyle highlights the chasm between their worlds, where true reintegration is impossible despite Gatsby's wealth.

The Persistent Impact

Social class is a defining characteristic of the characters and events in "The Great Gatsby," influencing their actions and the story's outcome. The separation of classes affects individuals' health, education, and encounters with the criminal justice system, as seen in the 1920s and persisting today. While social class was a significant factor in the 1920s, its impact remains relevant, affecting politics, religion, and social inclusion. In conclusion, social class not only dictates the characters' lives in Fitzgerald's novel but also serves as a reflection of broader societal issues that continue to resonate. People should not be judged by their social class but by their character, as the novel poignantly reminds us through its tragic narrative.

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Theme Of Social Hierarchy In The Great Gatsby Essay

In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald critiques a variety of themes of the American Dream — honesty, authority, avarice, treason, the American dream, and so on. Out of all the themes, none is more well developed than the theme of a social hierarchy. The Great Gatsby is considered as a brilliant piece of social narration, offering a descriptive look into American life during the 1920s. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into unmistakable groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to deal with, leaving a robust reminder of what a hazardous place the world really is.

By creating specific social classes; old money, new money, and no money. The author can send powerful messages about the egotistical personality running throughout every level of society to the reader. The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it is set in New York during the 1920s. The 1920s, also known as the Roaring Twenties, was a period in American History where people had the opportunities to reinvent themselves and make massive amounts of money. Fitzgerald describes this perfectly in his novel through the characters portrayed within it.

Throughout the novel the reader notices how social classes are determined by inherited wealth and that money is the epicenter of the characters’ lives. The Great Gatsby is a classic novel that demonstrates how money can buy expensive materials, but cannot provide happiness. The very first social class Fitzgerald attacks is the rich. For many of those of simple means, the rich seem to be unified by their money. However, Fitzgerald exposes the fact that this is not the case. In The Great Gatsby, the author declares two recognizable types of wealthy people. First, there are people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker who were born and inherited a assive amount of wealth.

Their families have had money for many generations, so consequently they are classified as “old money. ” As depicted in the novel, the “old money” have the luxury of not having the need to work and they spend their time entertaining themselves with whatever they desire. Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and the distinct social class they embody are reasonably the novel’s most egotistical group, striking divergence on the other people of wealth. This distinction between the rich is based solely on where the money came from and most importantly, when and where the money was inherited.

For the “old money” group of people, the fact that Jay Gatsby has just recently obtained his money is reason enough to be disgusted with him. By the way this groups thinks, he can’t possibly have the same clarification, emotion, and desire they have. The “old money group” cannot possible accept Gatsby because he has a low-class background and to make things worse he works for a living. In a multitude of ways, the upper class of society are right. The “new money” people cannot be like them. Since the social elite are subjunctive and one-dimensional they are unable to acknowledge the nature of others.

Instead, the “new money” people live their lives in such a way as to conserve their sense of dominance. The people with newly obtained wealth aren’t necessarily much better than the people who have inherited their wealth. Think of the people who attend Gatsby’s parties. They show up to his parties, drink his liquor, and eat his food, and never have the audacity to meet the host of the party. When Gatsby dies, every single one of the people who infected his house every week strangely became busy somewhere else, deserting Gatsby when he could no longer do anything for them.

One would like to imagine the “new money” group would be a little more sensitive to the world around them. Fitzgerald proves that their only concerns are about living in the moment. Just as he did to the people of money, Fitzgerald also uses the poor people with very little or no money to convey a strong message. Nick, even though he comes from a family with a little bit of wealth, doesn’t have nearly the finances of Gatsby or Tom. In the end, though he shows himself to be an noble, trustworthy and respectable man, which is more than Tom show cases. Myrtle, though, is another story.

At the best Myrtle comes from the middle class. She, like many others, is trapped in the valley of ashes, and spends her days desperately trying to make it out. In fact, her want to move up the social strata leads her to her affair with Tom and she is clearly satisfied with the arrangement. Because of the hardship overspread in her life, Myrtle has distanced herself from her moral duties and has no challenge cheating on her husband when it means that she gets to live the lifestyle she wants, even if it’s only for a little while. What she doesn’t understand is that Tom and his friends will never accept her into their circle.

Tom has a pattern of picking women from a lower-class to sleep with. For him, their feebleness makes his own position that much more superior to him. In a strange way, being with women who yearn to be in his class makes him feel better about himself and this allows him to preserve the illusion that he is a good and important man. Myrtle is nothing more than a toy to Tom and to those he represents. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is the symbol of Gatsby’s hopes and dreams. It is a symbol that represents everything that haunts and attracts Gatsby.

In this case it is not only the physical distance between him and Daisy, but also the emotional distance. It could also be regarded as the gap between the past and the present. Also the color green can be represented as money, which is something many of the characters crave. In fact, the color green shows up everywhere in The Great Gatsby. The sound for Long Island is green; George Wilson’s exhausted tired face is green in the sunlight; Michaelis describes the car that kills Myrtle Wilson as light green (even though it’s yellow); Gatsby’s perfect lawn is green.

The symbolism of green throughout the novel is as fickel and conflicting as the many definitions of green and the many uses of money. “Gatsby has faith in the green light, the indecent future that year by year fades away before us. It evaded us then, but that’s no matter – to-morrow we will run farther, stretch out our arms farther…. ” (Fitzgerald 149). Another controversial symbol in the novel is the East and the West. Most of the characters in the novel all originate from the West. This is because during the 1920s millions of American traveled West to restart and work hard for money.

And also during the 1920s there was a tock boom Which attracted many from the West to the East. The division between the eastern and western region of the United States is imatated in Gatsby by the divide between East Egg and West Egg. Once again, the West is illustrated as the frontier of people making their wealth, but these Westerners are as hallow and fraudulent inside as the Easterners. “I lived at West Egg, the-well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them…

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening | drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago” (Fitzgerald 14-15). The novel depicts the West as a place where the hard-working people reside and the east is represented as a very luxurious place where the wealthy live. Fitzgerald has a sharp eye and in The Great Gatsby depicts a harsh picture of the world he sees around him.

The 1920s marked a time of great post-war economic growth for America and Fitzgerald captures the hysteria of the society extremely well. They have assumed bias worldviews, wrongly believing their survival depends on stratification and supporting social boundaries. They incorrectly place their faith in superficial external means, such as money and materialistic possessions, while deciding not to encourage the compassion and sensitivity that, in fact, separate humans from the selfish, greedy, and egotistical animals. As Gatsby does it in the novel, one must hope for the best as we continue to live our lives.

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Social Stratification and Its Implications in “The Great Gatsby”

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Introduction

Social stratification mainly encapsulates divisions by economic disparities. “The Great Gatsby,”a novel authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald, outlines how different social classes interact with each other, meaning that low-income characters experiencing poverty suffer the most. Wealthy people dominate because they keep the lower class in daunting and needy circumstances. In particular, Fitzgerald’s novel demonstrates a theme of social stratification, where affluent individuals, such as Gatsby, possess the most societal privilege, leading to corruption and materialistic motivations, and less fortunate people, like Wilson, are oppressed and alienated.

Power Belongs to Rich People

Rich individuals have the power and privilege to evade mundane legal issues through corruption. For instance, Fitzgerald (2013) provides a car scene where a police officer who stops Gatsby for overspeeding feels threatened because of a white card that is shown to him (p. 68). Ironically, the policeman apologizes to Gatsby and releases him without a warning or a traffic ticket. In this case, Gatsby affects others using his wealth and authority in all conflicts (Paudel 2023, p. 77). The main character showcases such yearnings when he uses his favors and connection to the commissioner to corrupt and manipulate the officer’s decision. The scene exemplifies the concept of social stratification and how wealthy people control the system to their advantage even when they are wrong.

Social Stratification and Its Implications in “The Great Gatsby”

Materialistic Motivations

Materialism causes greed and characterizes ascending the social ladder. For example, Gatsby compares Daisy’s voice with money and nothing else (Fitzgerald 2013, p. 120). He tends to associate everything with wealth or anything with a monetary value. The desire to acquire and accumulate wealth and connect it to all things inspires materialistic individuals psychologically (Mulghani, Mushtaq & Fatima 2023, p. 116). Insatiability and inhumane treatment of others are the unfortunate implications of such aspirations. As a result, many people, like Gatsby, greedily focus on gathering financial resources to help them to attain a wealthy status and climb the economic ladder.

Social Despair and Segregation

Segregation and despair befall many working-class and poor individuals, causing dependency on the rich class. In the novel, Fitzgerald (2013) includes a metaphor of a “valley of ashes,” suggesting that it is a farm with a field of wheat (p. 23). These concepts symbolize the exploitation of less affluent individuals. There is an aspect of separation and mistreatment between the affluent and low-income social groups. Basically, the grey color of the ash means the worst people’s characteristics, like the low level of spirituality, morality, and other tragic concepts of human life (Haziri 2020, p. 16). This grey valley means the place where less fortunate individuals, like George Wilson, live. As a result, Wilson and other lower social class individuals experience social despair and segregation since wealthy people exploit them.

“The Great Gatsby” reiterates how wealthy people remain prosperous through corrupt and oppressive involvements. Gatsby represents the powerful characters that would easily overlook the law to perpetuate their agenda. He also depicts how materialism is a pivotal contributor to amassing wealth. In turn, the hard living conditions of ordinary people are the basis of segregation, oppression, and exploitation since they work in favor of rich individuals. Thus, social stratification is one of the central themes described in the novel because, regardless of class, everyone struggles to maintain or ascend to a better social status.

Reference List

Fitzgerald, FS 2013, The Great Gatsby , Scribner, New York.

Haziri, L 2020, ‘Colors and symbolism in “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald,’ Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices (JWEEP) , vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 13–16.

Mulghani, MA, Mushtaq, T & Fatima, A 2023, ‘Exploitation: A Marxist analysis of The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald,’ International Research Journal of Management and Social Sciences , vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 114–119.

Paudel, D 2023, ‘Exposition of disgust Rasa in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,’ Literary Studies , vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 75–81.

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Social Class Distinction in The Great Gatsby

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Class structure in the 1920s was synonymous to prejudice. The 1920s was known as a period of wild excess and great parties with excitement arising from the ashes of the wars in America’s history. It was a period in history where rapid materialism and narcissistic ideals grew uncontrollably, and it was the days where Jay Gatsby, illegally, rose to success. Having social classes was the same as segregation, except it was through economic standings, the two both instil injustice within social standards. Class structure was used to describe the difference between the new money and old money. The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, written during the 1920s, emphasizes the division between the social classes and the reasons behind why they

Role Of Wealth In The Great Gatsby

The East Egg was the wealthier and elite of the two Eggs, it was made up of snobby and greedy people. People who lived there were used to the finer things in life and never had to work for what they have. The East Egg is home to Tom and Daisy Buchanan; careless people who believe money can protect them forever. “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). People in the East believed they were superior and much more sophisticated compared to the newcomers living in the

Essay The Great Gatsby: Differences and Corruption of Classes

Money is essential for survival; it can bring happiness, despair, or corruption. It rules our daily lives, is preferred in large amounts, and separates us into different social classes. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is a perfect example of this since the class structure within the novel, portrays how money or the need for it can cause corruption in all the different social classes. This is shown through the three distinct classes: old money represented by the Buchanan’s and their self-centered, racist nature, new money represented by Gatsby and his mysterious, illegal ways, and a class that can be called no money represented by the Wilson’s and their attempts at

Theme Of Fate In The Great Gatsby

Being at the top of the hierarchical social ladder results in an abundance of power, and the means to both directly and indirectly control anyone beneath them. Throughout the novel, people such as Myrtle Wilson and Gatsby himself are willing to do just about anything to fulfill their aspirations of being at the top of the social pecking order, but they have a very bleak chance of success, if at all. The uncompromising segregation of social classes, and the personal desire of affluence, or at least put out the best impression or imitation of it possible, is a major influence on characters’ adverse fates in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author uses carefully placed metaphors to illustrate the desperation these characters experience in their tragic journey to reach their goal of being held in high esteem.

Essay On Social Class In The Great Gatsby

Social classes are truly like a ladder, but that final step is by far the most difficult. Trying to become the most powerful, and successful person around it an almost impossible task, which very few will ever achieve. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby spends his entire life attempting to climb the social ladder, in order to win back his young love, Daisy Buchanan. The novel makes a naturalism argument stating that no matter how hard you try, and how much you think you’ve achieved in your life, you will most likely never be able to rise from a lower social class.

Essay about Class in F. Scott Fitzgerald´s The Great Gatsby

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce,

The Great Gatsby And Of Mice And Men

The social hierarchy is influenced by the amount of money one owns which determines whether one can attain their dream. By creating apparent social classes within ‘The Great Gatsby’ – old money, new money and no money, Fitzgerald strongly suggests that American society is intensely stigmatised. Daisy, Tom and Jordan represent the elite social class of society where despite their problems and failures they are always protected and immune by their wealth. Tom refers to Gatsby as ‘Mr Nobody from nowhere” and a “common swindler who would have to steal the ring he put on her finger” as he boasts about his hereditary wealth compared to the other distinct elite group of society who acquire their wealth through business deals, which are sometimes corrupt. Although Fitzgerald mainly attacks the rich, by making them look judgemental, superior and selfish, evidently the lower class of society are vulnerable within American society. This is shown where so many, like Myrtle,

The Role of Social Class in “The Great Gatsby” Essay

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

Great Gatsby Wt2 Essay example

The Great Gatsby presents different social groups to embody and transmit the idea that each class has it’s own problems to prevail over and unhappiness transcends over all the social classes. The problems in each group, despite the social stratification, reveal the instability of the world they live in. The three classes are old money, new money, and no money in which all three believe their own rules of survival in society and enforce boundaries between social classes. Fitzgerald uses the similarities between the poor and the rich to reinforce his opinion and his characterization of the upper class.