What Is Myrtle's View Of The Upper Class In The Great Gatsby

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Gatsby Final Essay Sometimes, authors translate their own personal opinions and life experiences into their writing. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the characters of Myrtle, Tom, and Gatsby and the settings of East and West Egg to show the discrepancies between social classes he himself saw present in the 1920s. The history of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his family greatly impact the view in which he has in his novel about the upper class. "...The author and his wife Zelda moved to a section of Long Island called Great Neck where they were exposed to the workings of the upper class and experienced first hand the division between old and new money" (Palladino). His neighbors in Great Neck, were those of new money. Across the bay, were those of old money. These ideas translated into his writing. Fitzgerald's idea of …show more content…
While the economic upswing was in full blast, social classes began to form. "The idea was that anyone could become a millionaire regardless of ones background...The attainability of this dream gave birth to a nouveaux of social riches, who were generally looked down upon by those who came from old money" (Palladino). In the novel, the social classes are "divided" by where they live. East Egg became the place of old money, and West Egg was of the new. Tom and Daisy are from East Egg, Gatsby is from West Egg and Myrtle is from "no money". The people of East Egg are Ivy League educated, elegant and classy. The people from West Egg are newly rich, gaudy, obnoxious and mostly live there because they can't afford to live in East Egg. The people of West Egg are almost trying to