Money is the barometer of society's virtue.
-Ayn Rand
The Great
Gatsby portrays a world
of materialism, extravagance, and wealth in America in the 1920s. However,
there are divisions among the populations of wealth in the East and West Egg
where the book takes place. There are the ‘East Eggers’: the new money, the
classy, more refined group that live in elegant mansions, go to Ivy League
schools, and have had their money passed down from generation to generation- the
Buchanan’s. Than there are the ‘West Eggers’: the new money- Jay Gatsby. The
new money is a showier, not as classy group of people that came upon their
wealth through entrepreneurship. The main difference between the two differing
classes of wealth is the lineage and the generations that the wealth has been
kept.
Throughout the
novel, the two Eggs are representative of the social divisions in society.
There will always be the aristocratic wealthy whose family has been wealth for
as long as they can remember. There will always be the people that are showy
and try to climb the economic ladder to prove themselves to others or to make
themselves feel better. Nick, although his family is more East Egg, moves to
West Egg. This is a symbol of him breaking the system in a way. He leaves his
family and the family business he would have likely taken over to move to New
York City and start a new job. He lets his family support him, but moves into a
cheap home in the less classy Egg. Gatsby claims to be more of an East Egger,
saying his money was passed down when his family died, but he lives on West Egg
and lives up to the extravagance and materialistic lifestyle of new money. Tom
and Daisy are examples of people who were handed their money. Tom went to Yale,
but was not very smart. His success came from the family name. Myrtle, Tom’s
girl, is an example of a person who wants to have money. She sees Tom as her way
into a life of wealth.
Everyone else is
not really addressed in the story. George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, could be an
example of everyone else. He does not live a life of wealth and cannot provide
for Myrtle what Tom can. He represents the class of people that work hard for
their money but still cannot quite make it to extreme wealth.
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