Social Class In The Great Gatsby

Social class and status plays a significant part in The Great Gatsby in which the characters are distinguished by their wealth, work, and living. The American dream plays a big role in the social class as people have to make their own decisions to get where they want to be in their life. In the novel, there are two cities, East egg and the West egg, which are separated by the valley of ashes. Between the two cities of which you live in, shows if you are from a wealthy family (East egg) or if you are new to wealth (West egg). In What Social Class is in America, the author describes the concept of the American Dream, “In the bright glow and warm presence of the American Dream all men are born free and equal. Everyone in the American Dream has
the right, and often the duty, to try to succeed and to do his best to reach the top.” This source states a great point, “If all men are born equal,” there is no way of reaching to the top level. Therefore, The Great Gatsby is somewhat still relevant in today’s society. We as Americans are focused too much of what we can do to be best of the best and are often not focused on what it is we need to do to be successful in life. The author, Fitzgerald depicts the American Dream through the character of Jay Gatsby.
Gatsby is able to change his life around as he goes from having nothing to being the wealthiest guy in town/city. We learn from Gatsby that anything is possible as long we put the effort and the willingness in to succeed in life and that we need to do our part in order to get the things we want in life. In The Great Gatsby, the characters had it a lot harder than what we as Americans are going through in today’s society. Therefore, it is harder to achieve our goals as 35% of the Americans are placed in middle classes according to the CNN news from 2013. (CNN, 2013) Americans are wanting to stay where there are and are not wanting to take the risk to be moved up a level. Someone once said, “The American Dream is harder to achieve in today’s society as the stakes are higher and new things are enforced in which it makes it difficult for the Americans to be able to reach that limit/level.” Gatsby however lived in a society where most people were placed in the lower classes, which made their life harder to live in. He has the opportunity of striving to be at the top because he was already low enough to where he had the chance of making his life become more enjoyable and
successful. “Is the American Dream that people can rise from rags to riches with a little grit and Imagination or fall from the top rungs to lesser positions of they cannot cut it-- mostly a myth,” New York Times, Class and the American Dream. We learn that class is based on economic and social differences, remains a powerful force in American life, and has come to play a greater role over the last three decades. In the Article, it states many key facts about the Americans and what they do not realize in our society today. In relation in The Wall Street Journal found that as the gap between rich and poor has widened in America, the odds that a child will climb from poverty to wealth, or fall from wealth to the middle class, have remained stuck, leaving Americans no more likely to rise or fall from their parents' economic class than they were 35 years ago.
In contrast to The Great Gatsby and today’s society, we realize that we as Americans are becoming lazier and are often stuck in a hole and are not able to find our way out. If you start in the lower class, the only way to get back up is to try your best and do everything you can to reach your goals. We need to take the risks to be a better person and the only way to do that is to make mistakes and to learn from them. In chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby, it is clear that Nick believes that isn’t the only thing that can make the lower classmen be at the top as evidence to what he said, “I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.” (13) He says that money is not the only thing that someone is born to. It is all about the “fundamental decencies” and that man doesn’t have to be rich to have a natural class. Everybody is born equal, but it depends on the person to choose how he or she wants to lay out his or her life. People have to want to do things on their own and not look up to someone for every little thing.
The Great Gatsby is somewhat still relevant in today’s society because with the American Dream still being possible, it’s harder to achieve it in today’s society because the stakes are higher and new enforcements are made each day. As long as we are able to set our own goals and set plans of how to reach those goals, anybody is able to do anything and be where they want to be. You can’t succeed in life with just hard work, you need a plan/resources as well as support. We are not always capable of doing things alone so we need someone to be there for us to help us. People should be placed in a class where they belong and not just, where the money leads them.