The Role Of Social Class In The Great Gatsby

During the 1920s, social classes influenced the way of life. Neighborhoods often represented what class families were in. Fitzgerald grew up on a middle class street but lived in a lower class house; likewise, in The Great Gatsby, the characters are separated by neighborhoods: East Egg and West Egg. East and West Egg is “where Fitzgerald makes most clear the disparity between the major characters’ relationships to their present environment and the idealized visions they continue to hold of landscapes from their past”(Beuka). East Egg represents old money and upper-class childhood: Tom and Daisy Buchanan. West Egg represents self-made, new money: Gatsby and Nick Carraway. The Valley of Ashes represents lower-class and the non wealthy: Myrtle