Social Stratification In The Great Gatsby

Words: 749
Pages: 3
Open Document
Power, betrayal, the american dream, but one Fitzgerald focused on most was social stratification. He does this by setting the characters into three distinct groups; old money, new money and no money. In the novel, money is used to identify a group. Everyone seen in the novel is characterised by how much money they have and how they got it. He even goes as far as separating them into different locations, East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes. Initially it is important to focus on the new money, the people in West Egg. They are the higher part of society, the people with huge amounts of money like the people in East Egg, but the main difference between the ones in West Egg and the people in East Egg is that they earned their money, rather …show more content…
Those who live in East Egg. They are shown as being careless, stuck up and more traditional than the people in West Egg. People like this are the ones who dislike Gatsby because of the unknown. Everyone wants to know how he got his money, so they listen to every rumor that passes their ears. Everyone in East Egg has had their money handed to them, along with traditions. Money is used as a way to describe people, the more money you have, the more people look up to you. This is seen through the way nick talks about Daisy, “her voice is full of money, that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it.” (120) The fact that she has money makes her more attractive, that being the characteristic that people in the East share, making it easier to put them in a category of their …show more content…
People in East Egg are respected for the money and traditions they inherited while people on West Egg are questioned about how they got theirs. All while the poor are nothing more than a reflected image of the place they live. In conclusion, the people with old money place their faith on external means, while neglecting compassion and sensibility. While the others who earned their money have a bigger, pure meaning behind what they do and why they do it, and the poor being just an additional piece to this mess of a
Show More

Related Documents: Social Stratification In The Great Gatsby

Sociology and American Dream Essay

Gatsby sought after the American Dream. Throughout his quest he developed specific strategies to attain his goals. Unfortunately, he failed. Yet does this mean the American dream is dead? Your job is to write a collegiate essay that examines the American dream in a literary analysis. You may do this by focusing on one of the following literary perspectives. With all these perspectives, you need to synthesize at least three works from the research list: The American Dream: Define the American dream…

Words 406 - Pages 2

Examples Of Moral Decay In The Great Gatsby

construct and thus leads individuals to act in ways that will influence their social mobility. Encompassed by the desire for a home, family life, and work, the American dream is the driving force behind an individual's actions and is a defining characteristic of the 1920s. Society’s moral decay is clearly shown throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby and these actions take place in a handful of ways in every social class. The separation of classes between old money, new money and no money…

Words 1632 - Pages 7

Argumentative Essay: The American Dream

the achievability of the american dream one being that it is not possible to come up from the bottom of the social stratification engraved in american society which is presented in Ehrenreich’s book “Serving in Florida”. The second argument is that when people get rich and start to succeed they start losing the feeling of happiness and fulfillment as shown in Fitzgerald novel “The great Gatsby”. The thing is I have personally seen many different people come up from literally nothing to a life of pure…

Words 1580 - Pages 7