The Great Gatsby

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Recommended: Analysis of the great gatsby

Do you want to be rich? Live in a big mansion; have lots of fancy cars and expensive jewelry? Well unless you’re born rich, keep on dreaming. That is what is foretold in the Great Gatsby. The book makes it pretty clear that here's no such thing as the American Dream or being a “start from nothing”, self-made man. You are who you're born as, and trying to change classes will just lead to tragedy. Your class defines who you are, and changing classes will ultimately lead to you changing yourself. The class that you belong to can ultimately decide what kind of person you are. It's a pretty harsh picture of the American society and life, to those who lived through World War I; it would have been very harsh indeed. In the book, money affects the characters, and groups of characters in a major way. You may think that the upper class would be unified, because they all have significant amounts of wealth. However, in the book there are two different types of wealthy people. There are two cities separated by the valley of ashes, called East Egg and West Egg. First, there are people like the Buchanan’s and Jordan Baker who were born into wealth. Their families have had money for many generations; so they are called "old money. In the book, the "old money" people don't have to work and they spend their time amusing themselves with whatever takes their fancy. They have been well educated at Ivy League colleges such as Yale. These people live in East Egg. Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and the social class they represent are the books most upper class group, looking down on the other people of wealth like, Gatsby, based not so much on how much money he has, but where that money came from and when it was acquired. For the "old money" people, the fact... ... middle of paper ... .... Here Jordan Baker sounds like she doesn’t even try to hide her contempt for the "other" Egg. Jordan, like the Buchanan’s, is from “old money”, and she only knows one person who lives in West Egg. Daisy doesn’t know a single person in West Egg. The Eggs are so close in distance, but they seem to be worlds apart. There are many examples in the book that show how class determines people’s life. Another is how Gatsby and Daisy never end up being together. Daisy has been the love of Gatsby’s life ever since he was young. And ultimately, it is the difference in class that separates Gatsby and Daisy, and keeps her tethered with her relationship to her husband, who is from the same class as she is. This tragedy and many others in the book show how the difference in classes can change who you are, how you act and how your life is lived. Works Cited The Great Gatsby

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