The Great Gatsby Theme of Society and Class

The Great Gatsby is set among wealthy, educated people, who have lots of leisure time and little concern about people who are not in their social milieu. Nobody’s concerned about politics or spiritual matters but everybody cares about how they are perceived socially. Those who do come from other classes seek and envy the glamour and lifestyle that they see in the elite. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, is able to attain a certain amount of wealth, but he cannot fake education or social behaviors that only come with "old money." The novel’s two main locales, West Egg and East Egg, are distinguished also by class. East Egg represents "old money" while West Egg represents the nouveau riche. East Eggers consistently look down on West Eggers for precisely this fact. Class and wealth are virtually indistinguishable from each other, but if a person lacks education, then he is clearly not part of the upper echelon.

1. In The Great Gatsby, does wealth alone decide which class a character belongs to?
2. In this text, what are the various markings of the upper class? What distinguishes it from the other classes?
3. Is society what stands in the way of Gatsby having Daisy, or is it something else?
4. What are the differences between West Egg and East Egg? How might the symbolic distance between the Eggs comment on the distance between Gatsby and Daisy?
5. Is Gatsby in the same class as Wilson? If not, is he closer to Wilson’s class, or to Tom’s? Where does Meyer Wolfsheim stand in all of this?
6. Does Gatsby love Daisy, or does he love the lifestyle she represents? Is she only his ticket to the upper classes? If so, does Gatsby realize this?

In The Great Gatsby, the only element not restricted to one class is unhappiness. All members of all classes have this in common.

In The Great Gatsby, social norms and expectations lead to insurmountable barriers for relationships between men and women of different classes. The inter-class relationship is ultimately impossible in this text.