Great Gatsby Essay

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars”. This quote said by Garrison Keillor, metaphorically exemplifies the true meaning of hollowness and shallowness. Hollowness and shallowness were a major part of people’s characteristics in the 1920’s ‘easy money’ era because of the great economic boom. During this era, people earned their money by corruption with smuggling alcohol during prohibition. In addition, people earned their money by people unknowingly investing in major stocks. A few people earned their money with hard work; it was mostly made easily for them. Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the shallowness and hollowness of the upper class is persistently shown. Hollowness and shallowness of the upper class are shown in The Great Gatsby through Tom’s disrespect and segregation for people in the lower class; Daisy’s love and addiction towards ‘gold’ and money; and Tom and Daisy’s lack of respect for their morals by cheating on each other which leads to the tragic downfall of Jay Gatsby. Shallowness and hollowness of the upper class is shown in The Great Gatsby by Tom’s disrespect and segregation of people in the lower class. Tom Buchanan is characterized as a dominant white male who is the highest class of society; however, he disrespects people who are not in his class abhorrently. Tom treats George very poorly because he is from the isolated “Valley of Ashes”. Tom treats people that are in the lower class with racism and disrespect. In addition; he makes people in the lower class sound ‘unworthy’ of his time or presence. ‘Civilization going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently ‘I’ve got gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empire by this man Goddard??’ ‘Why,no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone. “ Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody outa read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be- will be utterly