F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Presentation of Class and Responsibility in his The Great Gatsby and Other Works

If there is one aspect of personality and character that connect the wealthy and privileged in the The Great Gatsby it is the lack of responsibility that they take for their own actions. This lack of responsibility stems from (or perhaps gives rise to) a sense of complete and utter boredom.

Tom and his wife Daisy Buchanan, the woman whom Nick accuses of “incurable dishonesty” Jordan Baker, Gatsby’s mentor Dan Cody, and the gambler Meyer Wolfsheim are all examples of people that have been corrupted by money, or (depending on your viewpoint) have abused the power of money to suit their own ends. Daisy Buchanan, who perhaps embodies the monied classes more than any other person in the novel (particularly as “her voice has money in it”), was born into wealth and has since cemented this further with a marriage described as the “finest Louisville had ever seen” to another person of equal or even greater wealth and (what a some would call) a pedigree to match. This has helped to create in her character someone who is utterly indifferent to life, her wealth has made her too disconnected from what Fitzgerald considers real life. Daisy Buchanan’s cosseted upbringing is shown particularly in Jordan’s description of Daisy’s life in Kentucky. She speaks of Daisy’s “artificial”, “pleasant” world which is awash with “cheerful snobbery”. These points are all significant, and we’ll return to them later, but the key part of this sentence is that for Daisy the “orchestras... set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes”. The phrase “summing up” , arguably, lends itself to suggesting one of two things; either that the events of life make either such a superficial impression on Daisy that she requires rem...

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...he was fighting for] now, he possessed it forever”. This illustrates that it that the violent competition was unecessary, perhaps these even extents to the loss of the simple ideal of American life in order to pursue a more corporatist one. Across the four texts, Fitzgerald is arguing that the American dream has lost focus. Materialism has come to dominate society to the extent that people have forgotten all their other, human values. Those who do, if unfortunate enough to not have been born into a wealthy family will find themselves desolate in the Valley of Ashes. It is ironic that a legacy of a past optometrist in the valley of ashes is T.J. Eckleburg whose eyes gaze forlornly down on the barren wasteland created by the careless, extravagant lifestyles of the wealthy. The fading eyes seem almost ashamed of the human extravagance causes across the Fitzgerald texts.