Social Stratification in The Great Gatsby
How does Fitzgerald depict social stratification through setting and characterization in the Great Gatsby?
The Great Gatsby, a text by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a literary text that revolves around many different themes like the American Dream, the emancipation of women, loss of moral values, justice, power and many more. One such theme that is prevalently presented throughout the text is the evident distinctions of social stratification. Social stratification has been prevalently developed through the surroundings and the setting of the plot as the story proceeds. He has created three distinct social classes, the ‘old money’, ‘new money’, and ‘no money’. In the end, all of the classes have their own kind of problem to deal with thus painting a picture of how the world is never fair to anyone.
The first group of people that Fitzgerald characterized through his descriptions of the setting they lived in, was the ‘rich’. However, I can infer that placing so many characters under the generalized term rich does not do justice to the different personalities that he had portrayed. Thus, he divided them into two different classes. Firstly, there are people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker, who were born into wealth. The fact that Tom Buchanan was described as a person whose ‘two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward’. These actions portray him as a character with a very domineering attitude. He is also obsessed with the idea that the "lesser races" are going to come knock the Aryans—excuse us, "Nordic" people—off their white privilege pedestal." If we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged" he says. Because people like him are termed as part of the highest class in the society due to their inherited ancestral wealth, they tend to look down on the others to a very large extent. People from this status are shown to have a lot of leisure time to spend
The Great Gatsby, a text by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a literary text that revolves around many different themes like the American Dream, the emancipation of women, loss of moral values, justice, power and many more. One such theme that is prevalently presented throughout the text is the evident distinctions of social stratification. Social stratification has been prevalently developed through the surroundings and the setting of the plot as the story proceeds. He has created three distinct social classes, the ‘old money’, ‘new money’, and ‘no money’. In the end, all of the classes have their own kind of problem to deal with thus painting a picture of how the world is never fair to anyone.
The first group of people that Fitzgerald characterized through his descriptions of the setting they lived in, was the ‘rich’. However, I can infer that placing so many characters under the generalized term rich does not do justice to the different personalities that he had portrayed. Thus, he divided them into two different classes. Firstly, there are people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker, who were born into wealth. The fact that Tom Buchanan was described as a person whose ‘two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward’. These actions portray him as a character with a very domineering attitude. He is also obsessed with the idea that the "lesser races" are going to come knock the Aryans—excuse us, "Nordic" people—off their white privilege pedestal." If we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged" he says. Because people like him are termed as part of the highest class in the society due to their inherited ancestral wealth, they tend to look down on the others to a very large extent. People from this status are shown to have a lot of leisure time to spend