Helena Pacek 30.05.

2024

— Social Class in „The Great Gatsby” —

Out of all the problems present in „The Great Gatsby”, social class is certainly one of the
most important. The whole idea of the book is based on the issue of classism in the early
twentieth century America, and how problematic it came to be in terms of relationship. Not
only that, I think that the social class dilemma plays a huge role in the whole image
Fitzgerald has set for the novel. The fact that it is America and not any other country is
definitely of import to the books plot, because when we look at the situation of any other
county during the „golden years” of the interwar period it couldn’t be different from the
party filled, fun, rich and a little bit devious portrait of the book, in Italy Mussolini just
came to power, Germany was trying to fight an inflation crisis, U.S.A. on the other hand,
just like presented by Fitzgerald. I don't think there’s another country in the world as
capitalistic as the States, and the true peak of it was exactly in the twenties. The thing is,
we can still see the horrible results of such wide class diversity of the twenties. In U.S.
plenty people still can’t afford a home, despite working often couple shifts, and
homelessness is second biggest (after drug problem) if not the biggest issue in modern
America. However just like then for Gatsby it took barely any time to go from being poor,
to being the richest man in new york, now it is almost impossible for such a thing to
happen. We can only look at the way the novel describes the class problem, as gone with
the wind, and quite irrelevant to the modern age.