The Great Gatsby Sociology Of Literatur

SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE
“THE GREAT GATSBY”

Submitted to fulfill the requirements of Sociology of Literature
Mid-term & Final Exams

By

Name
:
Mohammad Soni
NIM
:
147835129
Class
:
P2TK

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION
POST GRADUATE PROGRAM
STATE UNIVERSITY OF SURABAYA
2014
PLOT OVERVIEW
Nick Carraway has just moved from Minnesota to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn the bond business. He occupied a rent house in West Egg which is populated by the new rich people. Jay Gatsby, a mysterious man who holds extravagant parties every Saturday night is his next-door and has gigantic Gothic mansions. As the newcomer in West Egg, he finds himself different from the people there. He was educated and has relationship in East Egg where the upper class people live in fashionable area of Long Island.
Daisy is Nick’s cousin who lives in East Egg and has married with Tom. Nick meets with Daisy and Tom in one evening for dinner. Tom is actually Nick’s erstwhile classmate at Yale. Tom introduces Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman and a professional golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. From Jordan, Nick also learns more about Daisy and Tom’s marriage because Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City.
One day, Nick is invited to accompany Tom to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, a middle-class woman whose husband runs a modest garage and gas station in the valley of ashes. After the group meets and journeys into the city, Myrtle phones friends to come over and they all spend the afternoon drinking at Myrtle and Tom's apartment. The afternoon is filled with drunken and ends with Myrtle and Tom fighting over Daisy, his wife. Drunkenness turns to rage and Tom breaks Myrtle's nose.
Nick knows really well that his next-door neighbor often has parties in which eventually Gatsby invites Nick to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He meets Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a young man who calls everyone “old sport”. Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone. Nick later knows more about who Gatsby is from Jordan. She tells Nick that Gatsby firstly knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and he is very in love with her. He bought a mansion simply because he wanted to stare at the green light at the end of her doc, across the bay from his mansion. He holds extravagant lifestyle and wild parties because he attempts to impress Daisy. From Jordan too, Nick knows that Gatsby wants him to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy by inviting her to Nick’s house to have a tea and Gatsby will be soon there to see Daisy.
The day of the meeting arrives. Nick's house is perfectly prepared so romantically. Gatsby and Daisy finally meet after so long time. The reunion runs a little bit nervous firstly but they talk each other conveniently later on. After having tea in Nick’s house, Daisy is invited to the Gatsby’s party in his house where he shows her how he has been far out of poverty and has been so rich to make her impressed.
Time goes by, the affair between Gatsby and Daisy begins to grow that makes Tom suspicious. At a luncheon in Buchanans’ house, where Jordan and Nick are also invited, Gatsby stared at Daisy lovingly that make Tom realizes if Gatsby in in love with his wife. Although Tom himself involves in an affair with Myrtle, he is very outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. Knowing that her husband is deeply outraged, Daisy asks the group to trip and to relax to the city. Daisy is no longer hiding her love for Gatsby when she prefers to go with Gatsby to Tom. Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive in Gatsby’s car, while Gatsby and Daisy drive Tom’s. The group ends up at the Plaza hotel, where they continue drinking. Tom, jealousy with his wife’s affair relationship, begins to badger Gatsby, questioning him as to his intentions with Daisy confrontationally until Gatsby tells the truth that he wants Daisy to admit she is never loved Tom but that, instead, she has always loved him. When Daisy is unable to do this, Gatsby declares that Daisy is going to leave Tom. Tom, though, understands Daisy far better than Gatsby does and knows she won't leave him because of his wealth and power which is matured through generations of privilege. Tom, then, orders Daisy and Gatsby to head home in Gatsby's car. Tom, Nick, and Jordan follow.
When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.
After Gatsby's death, Nick is left to help make arrangements for his burial. What is most perplexing, though, is that no one seems overly concerned with Gatsby's death. Daisy and Tom mysteriously leave on a trip and all the people who so eagerly attended his parties, refuse to become involved. Even Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby's business partner, refuses to publicly mourn his friend's death. A telegram from Henry C. Gatz, Gatsby's father, indicates he will be coming from Minnesota to bury his son. Gatsby's funeral boasts only Nick, Henry Gatz, a few servants, the postman, and the minister at the graveside. Despite all his popularity during his lifetime, in his death, Gatsby is completely forgotten. Nick, then, prepares to move back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast.
ANALYSIS OF SOCIETY
1. Inhabitants East Egg and West Egg
The people of west egg and east egg are major topic explored in The Great Gatsby especially in terms of sociology. West egg is depicted as representative of the newly rich people, while East Egg represents the old aristocracy. People from west egg are associated with people who were born into wealth, like Tom Buchanan, Daisy, and Jordan Baker. As portrayed in the novel, they rarely have to work and they spend their time amusing themselves with whatever takes their fancy. In other hand, the people of east egg represented by Gatsby are different from the people of west egg. He gained his fortunes by certain efforts, though, it is obtained with crimes. The distinction people between west egg and east egg do not lie on how much money someone has, but where that money came from and when it was acquired. Although east egg, like Gatsby, has more wealth than the West Egg does, the West Egg people considers that the rich people from East Egg cannot possibly have the same refinement, sensibility, and taste they have. In other words, the people from West Egg are social elite. The wealth people in West Egg are even called as old money, and the east egg rich people are called new money.
In the novel, It is also portrayed the newly rich as being vulgar and lacking in social graces and taste. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker when they come to Gatsby’s party. What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. It can be exemplified by the Gatsby East Egg guests’ parties and the Buchanans. People who always attend Gatsby’s parties, drink his liquor, and eat his food, never once taking the time to even meet their host (nor do they even bother to wait for an invitation, they just show up). When Gatsby dies, all the people who frequented his house every week mysteriously became busy elsewhere, abandoning Gatsby when he could no longer do anything for them. Also, the Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans’ bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.
2. The American Dream
The story taking place is set around 1920s representing the American dream in an era of gaining prosperity and material excess. In the 1920s, it is portrayed as the decayed social and moral values as exemplified by overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The characters of The Great Gatsby are also depicted as the result of these social trends. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. The American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness as depicted in the novel. The social status is also reflected in the main plotline of the novel as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle.
Throughout Fitzgerald’s novel, the characters aspire to their own definitions of the American Dream. Money plays a prominent role in obtaining those dreams. Love, success, respect and wealth are incorporated into visions and life aspirations. One point to consider discussing consists of Gatsby’s idealization of Daisy compared with Daisy’s true character. Another point for consideration is the American dream of success, wealth and respect contrasted with Jay Gatsby’s amassing of wealth through illegal means (bootlegging) and how his instant affluence fails to gain him respect or a higher social standing. The hope for the dream and the despair upon not obtaining this perceived dream can be discussed, incorporating the example of Gatsby’s name change as a symbol of hope (hoping to become someone successful and wealthy) and the despair associated with his inability to change who he is at the core of his being.
Related to the society analysis, it can be believed that people are trying to get what is called as American Dream; in other word, money in order that they can be acknowledged his high social status, and can gain respect from other people.