Marxism In The Great Gatsby Essay

By using the Marxist lens to analyze The Great Gatsby, special attention is devoted towards who has wealth, what do they use this wealth for, and what is the result. In the novel, Jay Gatsby is one of those characters with wealth/power. However, Jay Gatsby comes under a different level of wealth/power, he is referred to as one of those people that have “New money” which means newly earned money. By using the Marxist lens to analyze Jay Gatsby’s character, it made me notice that having a plethora amount of wealth, tends to result in exploitation by other people. Gatsby used his wealth to buy a mansion that was home to very grand parties filled with loads of people. Many people at his parties took full advantage over the privileges Gatsby was …show more content…
Protests are regularly held for issues such as, equal pay, sexual harassment, etc. This movement aims to change history, a history in which females were deemed unequal to males, and had to conform by certain standards such as being responsible for cooking, cleaning, doing house work and other chores along those lines. In The Great Gatsby, it is evident that these standards existed, and that women that did not conform to these were shamed and mistreated. Jordan Baker for example, was not the average women. She was not married, she was a golfer, that attended parties, wore sports clothes and overall did not conform to the female standards set at the time. However, she was viewed as shameless and different in a negative manner for these traits. Even her very own family was not impressed by her “care-free” living,“ they oughtn’t to let her run the country this way”(Fitzgerald 18). This raises the question, why did females have to conform to certain standards while men did not? This issue also comes up in the article feminism theory, when the Anne Freadman says “Men are sustained at the centre of the stage precisely because they can be "people" and do not have to represent their masculinity to themselves. They need never see themselves or their maleness as a problem “ (Freadman 37), Freadman is trying to get her point across that throughout history …show more content…
The feminist lens to read this book lets us appreciate that females have such a high level of freedom, they have the right to vote, they are leading countries etc. The Marxist lens shows that chasing wealth will not yield positive outcomes always, and that we should be grateful with out wealth as we don’t know the reasons behind wealthy people got their