The Importance Of Wealth And Class In The Great Gatsby

Wealth and class have played an important role in society because it determines a person’s societal status in the social hierarchy. It is human nature to crave a higher status in this hierarchy that society created and now, simply accepts. Perhaps this is what F. Scott Fitzgerald found so interesting when writing his novel, The Great Gatsby. However, does having an abundant amount of money automatically mean a high place in our socially hierarchy? In other words, does being rich automatically mean one has class? Class is defined as acting with a level of sophistication, maturity, and social graces. In The Great Gatsby, the main character’s father teaches his son a very valuable lesson about not letting money affect ones attitude towards other people. The lesson was “’whenever you feel like criticizing any one’…’just remember that all

Everything with Gatsby was all about image, right down to his library in his mansion. During one of Gatsby’s extravagant parties, an owl eyed man exclaimed “’See!’…’it’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop too- didn’t cut the pages’” (Fitzgerald 52). The fact that the pages in the book were not cut, means Gatsby never actually read any of the books. He just wanted to look sophisticated. Another example would be his excessive amount of expensive shirts. He makes a point to show these to Daisy when “he took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray” (Fitzgerald 87). If he was truly mature, Gatsby would not obsess over material things and something as conceded as his image. A truly mature person would focus on the more important things in life, regardless if they were broke or