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The Role Of West Egg In The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald uses diction to show the changing morals from conservative to rebellious in America during the 1920s.

West egg and East egg are perfect examples of the changing morals as West egg is the older values, living by their morals and ethics rather than their money, Gatsby and Nick both live in West egg. Fitzgerald describes West Egg as “the-well less fashionable of the two” and East Egg as “white palaces...glittering along the water.” (5). His use of the word “glittering” displays East Egg as majestic and desirable. East egg is home to the people born into money like the Buchanans, these are “careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...and let other people clean up the mess they made” (Fitzgerald 179). East Egg is home to the old morals of being elite to the other classes and not making their money from corrupt ventures. West Egg shows the new morals where “ …show more content…
“On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house” (61). The church bells are symbolic of the old morals, as it was necessary to go to church each Sunday morning. “The world and its mistress” refers to all the people with changing morals in America. The word “mistress” is used in order to show the lifestyle change, as in real life a mistress changes a man's life. Daisy Buchanan is symbolic of the old morals, knowing that Tom has a mistress yet turning a blind eye to it and hoping it will stop. Myrtle is a symbol of newer morals because she is having an affair with Tom

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