The Great Gatsby Thesis and Topic Analysis

The social and economic aspects of context have shaped my understanding of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s critical views on the American dream and class structures during the Jazz Age. As a modern reader, an understanding of the context provides foundation to interpret the critical nature of the text, due to the differences in economic and social state in time and place as an Australian reader. The Great Gatsby provides a unique perspective on the roaring twenties as it sets the framework on how social class functioned and how ‘new money’ and ‘old money’ clashed socially despite their similar economic standing. The novel was written in 1925, forewarning the Wall Street Crash and the false promise of the American dream.

The Great Gatsby’s production context had rigid class boundaries, people were separated into upper and lower classes based on wealth, marriage was a tool to gain social standing and wealth for the upper classes, but the lower class were exploited to serve the rich. F. Scott Fitzgerald was critical of the class structure in his society, lower class people were exploited, and the upper class is characterised by rigid social expectations. The deterioration of Daisy’s butler’s health is shown and how she shows little empathy, “Well he wasn’t always a butler, he used to be a silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He polished it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose.” She cannot understand the harsh conditions that the lower class goes through as well of being fully aware that he was overworked, through the diction, “polished from morning till night.” It displays the exploitation and labour that the poor had to endure to earn a living. The description of the valley of the ashes uses imagery, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque garden:” constructs a picture of absolute poverty and desolation for where the poverty stricken live. This shows the divergence between the rich and the poor in the 1920’s, even today many countries still have slums and struggle to help the homeless. Marriage is used in the text to highlight class expectations and boundaries. Marriage doesn’t capture the modern understanding of two people in love, instead who can marry who is based on one’s class and how much wealth they own. “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe.” An understanding of the class structure in the 1920’s has shaped my reader’s response to the text’s portrayal of upper and lower-class characters. Context allows an understanding of the criticism of the rigid class structure, where the lower class is exploited and lives in poverty.

The novel highlights the use of excessive materialism, which is displayed throughout the book, it distinguishes new money from old money. Using setting, characterisation and imagery the reader is exposed to the upper classes unnecessarily expensive lifestyle and materialistic values. Materialism is to consider material possession and physical comfort more important than spiritual values. The Great Gatsby was produced in an era of spending, parties and breaking the social standards. Gatsby demonstrates this by using his wealth to throw massive parties which further emphasizes his amount of wealth as he is able continually host these parties. From a middle-class perspective, imagery is used to highlight and position to reader to question the pursuit of excessive wealth by constructing the “parties” as immoral and wasteful, “On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.” The description of the buffet creates the excess of Gatsby’s wealth; diction of ‘gold,’ ‘garnished,’ ‘crowded’ represent the explosion of food to show off Gatsby’s money. Understanding the social and economic context of the 1920s highlights the distinction between old and new money. Tom and Daisy were born into money and live in East Egg to represent the old aristocracy or ‘old money.’ Gatsby’s wealth is considered ‘new money’, which means he had to work for his money, but his origins are from a poor class. ‘Old money’ disregard those with ‘new money’ as unworthy of their social circles, “I lived at West Egg, the – well, the least fashionable of the two…” The description of West Egg houses highlights the wasteful nature of the wealth, “The one on my right was a colossal affair …” The people with ‘new’ money exhibit excessive materialism to prove themselves in their new social and economic class. As the book was written in 1925 our modern reader’s context can see this as forewarning of the Wall Street crash, with early warning signs like the excessive spending.

The false promise of the American dream plays a very important role in the novel as it displays what Gatsby wanted to achieve but ends up exposing the impossibility of it. The character Jay Gatsby is a huge metaphor, for the American dream and the failure of it. Gatsby creates his wealth from working hard and earning the ‘new money’, which instead challenges the American dream because he does it illegally by using the ban on alcohol to gain wealth. Gatsby “dreams of daisy” with an idealistic perfection that is impossible to obtain as people are flawed but he pursues her blindly that he is unable to see her limitations. As his dream disintegrates, it reveals the corruption of wealth and the American dream. Gatsby’s character is developed as a fake persona, his name is changed when he gains wealth from “Jimmy Gatz’ to “Jay Gatsby.” This highlights how the character has developed from poverty and is trying to reinvent himself into somebody new in accordance with an understanding of the ideas of the American dream at the time; reinventing yourself from nothing through hard work. The American dream tries to break the old class system and focus on wealth, but even Gatsby who follows the rules of working hard to become rich, does so illegally. This serves as a metaphor that it is impossible for the American dream to become true because it is fundamentally corrupted as represented through Gatsby’s amoral methods to gain wealth.