Class And Status In The Great Gatsby

In American author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, class and status play a critical role in the actions and motivations of the characters. It is a novel, which has been studied ever since it was released, and evokes some pretty strong responses to readers and scholars alike. One scholar, John Pidgeon, went as far as to say that, he is “absolutely convinced that The Great Gatsby (1925) is one of the finest pieces of American literature” (178). He is not alone in this thought, and this novel has been read and studies for more than ninety years (Bachelor 121). The story takes place in a fictional town in New York called West Egg, which is set in Long island in 1922. Nick Carraway, the narrator who discovers his neighbor is a mysterious …show more content…
Adam Meehan acknowledges that race is been a topic of much discussion ever since the release of The Great Gatsby (76). “White” is referenced countless times in the novel, and only when discussing women and objects of a higher class. Virtually all the characters in the novel bring up race, or ‘whiteness’ in some form of another. Nick discusses women in “white dresses” (Fitzgerald 13), “gleaming white” (Fitzgerald 10) figures, “white palaces” (96), and the high-class faces whose “complexion powdered milky white” (26). Although these references are not all directly about skin tone, they do heavily imply that citizens of high-class tend to possess some form of whiteness, whether in their clothes, makeup, furniture, or flesh. Jordan Baker expresses a more explicit example about race and whiteness in the text. In the line: ““we’re all white here” murmured Jordan” (Fitzgerald 103), it is evident that race plays a factor in their conversations, and their social class. Because they are “all white”, it automatically puts them in a class above those who are not. Some critics chose to analyze race within the text using Fitzgerald’s own personal views (Meehan