Class Division Theme in the Great Gatsby Essay Example

📌Category: Books, The Great Gatsby
📌Words: 394
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 11 June 2022

In society, some people are born into immense wealth and power and utilize that to their advantage to get away with the mistakes they made. In the Great Gatsby, it is shown that throughout the entire book. Many themes show up in the Great Gatsby; numerous events and symbols represent the American dream, dreams/reality, reliving the past, love, infidelity, and class divide. The theme class divide plays out and is displayed throughout the story in the Great Gatsby. 

In The Great Gatsby, the theme of class division or class divide is presented in several ways, like "All right, old sport," called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man's eyes. "Right you are," agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. "Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!" (53). When Gatsby showed his white card to the policeman for speeding, he excused him from the speeding ticket because of Gatsby's wealth and status. 

There are also geological features or places in the story that show the themes of class division, such as The Valley of Ashes. "This is the valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air." (20) The valley of ashes is where the people living there are poor and in poverty; people who live there try to move up the status ladder and become rich, but that never happens; they are bound to be that status which is poor. 

People that possess the luxury of having lots of wealth and power exploit that to their advantage to get away with things, like Tom and Daisy in the story. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness ... and let other people clean up the mess they had made… ". (137) Being born into such wealth and high status, Tom and Daisy can always cover up their mistakes with their fortune and let other people deal with them.

This concludes how the theme class divide plays throughout the Great Gatsby. Throughout history, class divide has always been a thing like in the medieval times where social classes had a big part of life and how you are treated; even to this day, social classes still exist but not to that extent.

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