Societal Distinctions and How Social Class Impacts The American Dream

đź“ŚCategory: American dream, Philosophy
đź“ŚWords: 1249
đź“ŚPages: 5
đź“ŚPublished: 18 June 2022

The roaring twenties was an increased time of wealth, fun and leisure. F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts these devices in his novel The Great Gatsby, showing how people of different classes lived in the nineteen twenties and uses symbols like the valley of ashes to convey the crushed dreams of the poor lower class and the individuals left behind from the enjoyment of “old money”. The whole novel uses symbols to illustrate how the overall game of life and the American dream is rigged. The Great Gatsby is just one big metaphor to show that life will always be unfair unless you are a part of the percent of humanity who is wealthy and anyone who tries to disrupt that peace will end up being put in their place. Social class played a large roll in the corruption of the American dream because the desire to be wealthy and to live in complete comfort exceeds morals, societal distinctions disrupted the American dream for the lower classes, and there are multiple possibilities to achieve the American dream but also debilitating limitations. The American dream is one big lie and it only applies to the wealthy and people of the higher class.

Social class and finding ones place in society can cause a lot of chaos within oneself, and can cause an individual to come up with some questionable notions such as exceeding moral standards or conformity norms. Immoral compass is shown in the novel when Nick the protagonist goes to his cousin Daisy’s house in East Egg for dinner one night. Nick ends up meeting Tom, Daisy’s husband, and Jordan, Daisy’s best friend. During their dinner and time together Tom brings up a book that he is reading called “The Rise of The Colored Empire”. He talks about what the book is about and how “It’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control over things.” (17) This comment throws Nick off. Nick, an honest man with an in tact moral compass stems from money and the advantages that wealth gives you. He is exposed to the entitlement of Tom Buchanan and how much he has no regard for any other human being other than himself and even how these specific people of the high class have no regard for other people.

Morals and the difference between them is widely shown based on how situations are handled by the characters in the novel. This type of immoral behavior is seen when Daisy, Tom, Jordan, Gatsby, and Nick all go into the city, get a room at the plaza and drink. Gatsby and Daisy are having an affair and this is the time that Gatsby tells Tom about it and tells him that Daisy never loved him. This whole scene in the nove is chaos and commotion which makes Daisy run off and Gatbsy chase after her. On all of the characters way back from the city, Daisy and Tom driving through the crushed dreams of the Valley of Ahses, Myrtle, who is toms mistress, runs out infront of the car and ends up getting run over and killed. Daisy who was driving the car continues to drive away without stopping. This scene shows one of two things, the way morals leave a person of high power’s head when a situation that is not in favor of them is proclaimed, but also how Myrtle someone of low class tried to make her way up the ladder but ends up getting put in her place.

In society there are colossal distinctions of class and how these standards of social strata impact the American dream. This can be shown towards the emergence of the book when Tom and Nick are taking a train to the city and Tom makes Nick get off the train at a certain stop in the Valley of Ashes. This place is where Toms misstess Myrle lives. Tom, Nick, and Myrtle all end up going into the city together to party at an apartment Tom has for his affair with this woman. On the way into town Myrtle takes advantage of enticing such a man of high class and uses his rank to try and get herself to that class. She does this by making him buy all of these items, including a dog. Myrtle is of the lower class and is trying to make her way up in the social strata by using Tom to her advantage. Myrtles American dream looks different than Gatsbys and is achieved in a different way. Although both cheated to get to the top, Myrtle did not work for her dreams and tries to cheat her way up the social grade which disrupts the origination of the American dream and she ends up getting put back into her place although this means death for her.

The American dream can be viewed in a variety of perspectives, although, the most interpreted perspective of the dream is utter success in everything. This includes the perfect car, the perfect house, the perfect life, and the perfect girl. This may be the ideal American dream but in reality the American dream is difficult to grasp unless you are of high grade in society. This means that the American dream is rigged. In the novel this is shown when Wolfsheim, on of Gatsbys so called best friends, rigged the world series in 1919. This was a form of rigging the American dream and the unfairness of class because anybody will do anything for money even cheat a game to win a little bit of money. This is a great example of how careless people of high class are and how little they know about how they impact everyone around them when rigging the game for everybody else.

The American dream is what Gatsby strived for because he knew he was better than just a poor boy in a poor farm family and believed “He was a son of God” (104). Gatsby originally adn legally James Gatz, met a man named Dan Cody who taught him everything he used to get himself to the top. After meeting this man James Gatz changed his name to Jay Gatsby which started his career and his version of the American dream. Gatsby got all of his riches by leading drug companies and bootlegging which is cheating the system to get to the top. Although the way he went about achieving his riches and successes was rigged in itself he did it for a very specific person who was his dream, the golden girl, Daisy Buchanan.

The American dream may have multiple possibilities, but it also has multiple debilitating consequences. The American dream is unfairly favored only to the people of the higher class. It is believed to be able to be achieved by everyone. In this novel the societal distinctions shown counter that belief. Gatsby was not originally apart of the high class, he made his way up the social ladder by owning businesses, and becoming a bootlegger. He made his way up to the top of the social ladder but was striked down after trying to win back his golden girl. Gatsby ends up being killed by the hand of another man of the lower class. This happened because Gatsby disrupted the peace between the social classes, low class should stay in low class, and high class should stay in high class. Gatsby had everything he could possibly want except for the girl of his dreams and while attempting to win her back he was ultimately told he is not allowed to disturb the societal distincitons.

Society as a whole, even in modern times, is still classed off. It is more accessible to achieve the Ameican dream but the same limitation still stand in place. The novel shows these societal distinctions and how they impact the American dream by showing how the distinctions disrupted the American dream, immoral behavior based on trying to rise up to the wealth, and exerting the possibilities of the dream while also explaining the limitations.

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