“I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. [...] Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water” (14-15). -In Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s highly regarded novel, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan gets caught between a love for her first love, Jay Gatsby, and her current husband, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby proves to her that he loves her by throwing extravagant parties in her honor. Tom, her husband who isn’t always loyal, but always comes back to her. Stuck in the middle of this power struggle: the narrator, Nick Carraway. The two societies of East Egg and West Egg differ greatly …show more content…
The main color of the homes in East Egg are white. White symbolizes an element of irresponsibility and a corruption of the morals of the people that live there. The color also represents the false purity that Daisy has. “Her voice, is full of money” (120). “Old money” means money that is handed down throughout the generations and these people have had to do little to no work to earn their money unlike the people from West Egg. ”One thing's sure and nothing's surer, the rich get richer”(101). Most of the people from East Egg want nothing to do with West Eggers. East Eggers believe that they are better than those that live in West Egg and that they are in a class of their own at the top of the social ladder. Tom Buchanan never attended a party at Jay Gatsby's Mansion until Daisy requests that they do. He is unimpressed with the party and thinks that it is childish. East Egg and West Egg aren’t just places that people live, it is much more complex than that. They are almost in a constant war. Not a physical war but a social war between the classes. East and West Egg represent an actual hard-boiled egg. White on the outside symbolizes false impurities, but yellow on the inside which actually shows all of the bad in these snobby
East Egg and West Egg are both cities in Long Island, New York but differ greatly in their symbols and underlying
The East and West Egg reflect Tom and Daisy’s presiding class dominance. Fitzgerald first introduces the places where the main characters Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy live by describing them as “a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay” (5). Already Fitzgerald gives the idea that these eggs have very similar features but are somehow different through his word choice of “identical” and “separated”. Fitzgerald places Gatsby on the West Egg and Tom on the East egg. They are “identical” in wealth but “separated” by class.
Gatsby says “just tell him the truth - that you never loved him - and it’s all wiped out forever” (Fitzgerald 132), Daisy tries to lie and say that she never loved Tom, but deep down, she once had feelings for him, and Gatsby is not willing to accept the fact that she does not have any feelings for Tom now, for him, it is only enough if she never had feelings for him, even when Gatsby was out of the picture. Eventually, Daisy breaks down and cries “oh, you want too much, I can’t help what’s past. I love you now - isn’t that enough” (Fitzgerald 133). Old money defines Tom, making him a symbol of elegance and luxury, whereas Gatsby comes from new money, associating him with illegal activity and rum running, a reputation that is evidently not adequate for Daisy: “she was appalled by West Egg [...] appalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemism” (Fitzgerald 108), yet, Gatsby tricks himself into believing that he is worthy of Daisy and he expects that she will leave Tom and her lavish, upscale life behind. Likewise to Gatsby’s desire to ascend the social ladder, Clare Kendry wants to pass for white and pursue a luxurious life with John Bellew, but also wishes to keep in touch with Irene and her race without his knowledge, a desire that impractical and unreasonable.
Tom of East Egg was married to the wealthy Daisy, but was having an affair with Myrtle, a woman of a lower social class. “Toms got some lady in New York” (Fitzgerald 15). Daisy began to have an affair with the affluent Jay Gatsby of West Egg. When Tom discovered this affair, he did not set after his wife, instead he would “...like to know who he is and what he does” (108). Tom, who was trying to confront Gatsby, suggested that after lunch they all head into town.
The setting takes place in the East Egg, West Egg, the Valley of ashes, and New York City. This correlates to the American Dream because of how people are separated and divided into areas based on wealth. The West Egg represents newly rich people - hard-earned wealth.
The benevolence of the color white reflects the family’s optimistic perception of American life in the beginning. The family keeps longing for their “white stucco house” (25) during their forced train ride to the internment camps, indicating the stability and peace the house brings to them. The white stucco house, an iconic enigma of the American Dream, also symbolizes the family’s desire to truly assimilate and create a solid sense of belonging in the country. One night in the internment camp, the mother becomes very restless and cannot bear to stay any longer. In an attempt to gain composure, she hangs a white sheet above her bed.
For centuries houses have been a way to showcase an individual’s social class, lifestyle and personality. The 1920s, during which The Great Gatsby is set, was an era of excess wealth where social position held great importance. F. Scott Fitzgerald extraordinarily represents three distinct social classes, lifestyles and personalities during this time with his descriptions of the houses belonging to Nick, the Buchanans and Gatsby. Nick Carraway’s West Egg house is “a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked” (1.14) much like the man who resides in it. Throughout the novel, Nick acts as more of an observer rather than a participant.
West Egg, much like the American West during the American expansionism, is where people go to make their fortune and where people with new money live. A major part of the American Dream was that you could make your
East Egg was the residence of the Buchanan’s, Daisy, and Tom, and temporarily Jordan Baker,
The Great Gatsby Appearance vs Reality The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about how a man by the name of Jay Gatsby tries to win the heart of Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loves. The entirety of The Great Gatsby is told through the narrator, Nick Carraway. At first, Nick views the lifestyle of Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan in awe, but soon discovers that these people are not who they appear. Fitzgerald uses his characters and literary devices in The Great Gatsby to demonstrate the theme of appearance versus reality.
The Buchanans are a family of east egg Tom Buchanan was born in a wealthy family and married his wife Daisy into this money. The Buchanans are seen as stuck up in the novel while tom and gatsby feud over Tom's wife Daisy Gatsby's life long sweetheart. F. scotts fitzgerald the Great Gatsby goes into great detail about the differences between the East and West Egg and there comparison and contrast by giving many details. Fitzgerald shows how two societies can be alike but different with the east and west egg one community is seen as a perfect community “A Mans Dream” and the other is seen as a corrupt town full of reckless rich people. The two are separated physically and socially because the East egg is built off of old money and the West egg is built off new money.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanan’s. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. ”(The Great Gatsby page 5). This explains the difference between the East and West Egg. People who lived in East Egg were valued more over the West Egg.
In The Great Gatsby, there exists a divide between the people who live in the three separate areas. Although the East Egg and the West Egg are both wealthy, they each represent different types of inherited money. Specifically, the East Egg is a place where the well-born people live: Nick and Gatsby and the West Egg is a place where the newly, self-made rich people reside: Tom and Daisy Buchanan. A conversation between Nick and Tom exists in which Tom reveals that he was the one who told Wilson that Gatsby owned the car that killed Myrtle. Nick is furious and begins to hate on the Buchanans for doing horrible things knowing that their money will secure them from having to face repercussions.
The 1920s is known for the jazz age also called the roaring twenties. In that time America was undergoing lots of changes economically, socially and culturally. One of the major changes that took place was in the fashion. Fitzgerald in his writing shows not only the fashion but also the clothes symbolizes other too. One of the symbols greatly used in the great Gatsby is the symbolization of clothes, how they represent different things at different times.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, tackles social and ethical problems that are found in his own time. Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota and as he became a writer, he moved to “the racy, adventurous” (Fitzgerald 56) New York City in 1919. In the film, director Baz Luhrmann accurately portrays the differences between East and West using colors and the positioning of the camera to show Fitzgerald's position. Fitzgerald's goal was to portray the backgrounds of his characters into a never ending chain of cause and effect, from where they once lived to their present situation and how that affects their personality.