The Class Clash

As Nick Carraway in the book The Great Gatsby ventures through many environments within New York, he experiences both sides of the economic system in the countryside and the urban areas. Through the vast use of intense diction, the author of the novel reveals his dislike of both the poor and rich societies in the early twentieth century.

• ·      When comparing the West Egg and East Egg, the narrator (Carraway) conveys his negative tone towards the wastefulness and ridiculous attitude of the affluent people on both sides of the island. While Nick is attending one of Gatsby’s parties on the West Egg, he describes the sequences of dances and emphasizes how the “old men [are] pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles” and some of the higher-class couples are “holding each other torturously, fashionably” (46). The terms “pushing”, “graceless”, and “torturously” implicate a sense of chaos and the words clearly demonstrate Nick’s opinion that the rich in the area are unorganized and try to appear gentlemanly and ladylike but they enact the opposite. At another one of Gatsby’s parties, the narrator is sitting near an inebriated group of partygoers and he is appalled to discover a girl attempt “unsuccessfully, to slump against [his] shoulder” (106). As Nick refers to the effort to relax as an unsuccessful feat, he iterates the stupidity of the wealthy as a whole and makes the small action sound like a failure, which minimizes the respect of the reader towards the woman even more. While the people in the west side of the island are characterized as a more humiliatingly boisterous group, the narrator expresses his exasperation at the seemingly delicate and old-fashioned personalities of the prosperous families in the East Egg. During a get-together at the residence of the Buchanan family (cousins of the narrator), the host, Tom Buchanan, rants about the white superiority over racial minorities and Nick listens to the reply from the wife: “’We’ve got to beat them down,’ whisper[s] Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun” (13). The strange adjectives used in the break of dialogue add a more disturbing quality to the discussion. The author emphasizes the reality of her words when he utilizes the oxymoron of “winking” and “ferocious” and establishes the irony in the actions of the wife. Even though she acts light-hearted, there is no doubt that the comment is serious enough to be documented in a negative way. When Nick first greets the family after many years of little correspondence, he realizes the difference in appearance of his friend Tom, stating that he has “two shining arrogant eyes [that have] established dominance over his face and [give] him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (7). Personifying “eyes”, Fitzgerald offers a new frightening perspective when referring to the influence of wealth on the once hospitable man. Now that he is “arrogant” and stands “aggressively”, the point comes across that the increase in social and economic stature has defaced the moral values of the host, which is evidently offending to the narrator through his dismayed diction. When Nick later hears a description of Daisy from her ex-lover, Gatsby, he interprets the praises of the woman as Daisy being “young and her artificial world [being] redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery” (151), which creates a degrading undertone towards the character’s ignorance. “Cheerful snobbery” and “artificial world” are phrases that develop a sense of empty headedness and that lend significance to Nick’s point that the rich in the East (and the West, for that matter) know nothing of the hardships of those in middle and lower classes and he accentuates this fact by choosing specific words to solidify his notions.
• ·      Although Fitzgerald is degrading towards the wealthy in New York, he is also unsympathetic towards those who have little money that live in the urban areas and he accentuates this with firm, unforgiving language. During a trip to the city, Nick describes his surroundings with disdain, depicting them as “ashes tak[ing] the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and…. men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). The words used within this quote imply the experience of death with the act of dying itself (“crumbling”) and the result of cremation (“ashes”). The author is equating the urban atmosphere to eternal misery and self-decimation, making the reader understand that the author does not desire to become like those in the decrepit city. Fitzgerald continues with his antipathy as he narrates how Nick visits Wilson’s car repair business, and he abhors the “unprosperous and bare” interior, along with the “dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouch[es] in a dim corner” (25). Nick’s distaste is evident in his utilization of the adjective “dim” (located in the previous quote as well) and shows that the lack of light represents the ugly antiquity of the garage. With the addition of the adjectives “unprosperous” and “bare”, the negative connotations leave the reader to believe that the environment of a common business in the poverty-stricken city is abominable to the author.