How Does Fitzgerald Present Wealth In The Great Gatsby

The Contrasting Forms of Wealth The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story of the emptiness and recklessness of the 1920s. His condemnation of the period reverberates through the novel as he explores and displays insufficiencies of the time. The 1920s were a period of sloth and moral despondency, as shown often, but by using the character Jay Gatz (a.k.a. Mr. Gatsby), we see a true shift in the ‘American dream’ and what wealth means.

Is there always a difference between the East/ New York and the West ? In some places, there is usually difference between the wealthy and the poor. Also, there tends to be a change in religion or race. Well, in the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott. Fitzgerald, there is slightly a difference between the East and the Midwest.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby (1926) set in 1922 depicts life in the Jazz Age, a time when social standards were protested and two years into prohibition, the authorised ban alcohol sparked the birth of organised crime. Many viewed this as the Government breaching the limits of its power. Only in the context of 1922 and the ill-gotten gains of ‘bootlegging’, could ‘a Gatsby’ appear from nowhere with such wealth to build his mysterious reputation without power or position in society. The ‘wasteland’, as depicted in the novel, symbolises that the ‘American Dream’, the belief that an individual could cross class lines and achieve anything, was simply, a dream.

In The Great Gatsby, social status is a significant element in the book as it separates the haves from the have nots. However more importantly, social status portrays the personalities of people belonging to different classes. In the end, you are stuck in the class you are born into, and attempting to change classes only leads to tragedy and heartbreak.     In The Great Gatsby, there are three main social classes portrayed. These are old money, new money, and no money.

The Great Gatsby takes place in Long Island, New York, as well as New York City and a segment between the two, known as the “valley of ashes.” Each area represents a different aspect of society during the 1920s. East Egg, the area in which Daisy and Tom live, represents the upper class that comes from established or “old” money. West Egg is home to people such as Gatsby, who have recently become rich. The valley, home to the lower classes, is a filthy, run-down place.

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.

The American Dream is originally about the discovery of success, but by the 1920´s, this dream took a different path; a path where people fought for the desire of wealth by any means in a battle between what was considered legal vs. moral. This mentality was product of capitalism, which introduces the mentality that money would bring happiness and success. This is why F. Scott Fitzgerald creates each setting of The Great Gatsby with a purpose, whether it was to illustrate how the roaring twenties changed the American society, or to symbolize how each setting represent the mentality of each character from the novel. The Great Gatsby tells the story of Jay Gatsby and his life into the world of the social elite as he works to gain Daisy's love. Fitzgerald focuses on how money and wealth can create a change in people, and throughout the novel, the setting represents part of this message, each location representing a different social class and a different perspective of life among the ones living in it.

Peoples’ morality and culture is defined as differing from continent to continent, country to country, or even as small as state to state. At times, the ethics differ even between city and city, but for the two Eggs, the difference lies between mere neighbors. On one morning as Nick steps outside his house, Gatsby appears in his Rolls-Royce which Nick describes as “a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns” (64). Just observing Gatsby’s vehicle implies Fitzgerald’s view of the East Egg’s new-money residents as everyday and lacking in social graces. The Rolls-Royce itself is a stereotypical rich-man’s car, in the 1920s selling at 400 thousand dollars in today’s

Setting in a novel, poem, or drama is one of the most important literary techniques. Contrary to what some people think, setting is not just a place where events of a plot take place. In essence, setting is much more complex which is sub-categorized into three elements: • Time • Location • Duration Time refers to the period in which a story takes place. A story can take place in near past, distant past, present, future, and so on.

Cultural and ethnic differences affect individuals, finding it hard and uncooperative to visit disparate regions and determining the type of interaction that should be present with different people; said Edward T. Hall due to his personal experiences in “The Arab World. Edward T. Hall is a cross-cultural researcher and an anthropologist that deals with different social concepts, he earned his Ph.D. in the Columbia University. (Rogers&Hart,2002). The article “The Arab World” explains and justifies that “proxemic patterns differ and that perceiving the world differently leads to differential definitions of what constitutes crowded living, different interpersonal relationships, and different approach to both local and international politics” (Hall,1966).