The Great Gatsby Research Paper

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Abstract : The purpose of this paper is to explicate the conflict aspects of the class through the characters and life backgrounds they had in The Great Gatsby. There are three classes in the story : the upper class, the lower class, and the new-rich class. The Great Gatsby is a real record of America in the 1920s, reflecting the disillusion and mental discouragement of the young at that time. Fitzgerald is one of the first writers who had a clear understanding of the nature of class in American society and expressed it in literature. He had a clear understanding of how the class concept was formed in the American society of that time, and he expressed that understanding in The Great Gatsby. Through making Nick, the narrator, Fitzgerald shows…show more content…
The confrontation exists in the Valley of Ashes, which is a depraved society with the worn-out billboard for the vanished commercialism and a source of corruption. Wilson maintains his life running the garage in the Valley of Ashes lethargically with the support of Tom in the upper class, and his wife. Mrytle cheats on Wilson to fulfill her low desires and to overcome her feeble husband and her miserable reality. Wilson and Mrytle living in the hopeless place, lose their dreams or ideals for life even though they try to escape from the ashy circumstance to elevate their social status from the lower to the upper. Myrtle has an undesirable relationship with Tom to satisfy her vainglory and lives in a wild fantasy that she belongs to the upper class. Wilson never knows his wife's illicit intimacy with Tom, and finally murders Gatsby for Tom's wicked trick. However, finally, she falls into tragedy without recognizing the nature of the class that she adored and desired to…show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald pursued to bring the conflict structure and aspects of all classes in America among various kinds of social matters into The Great Gatsby, and tried to show the mental degradation and the tragic scenes in all classes by the wealthy corruption in 1920. In The Great Gatsby, other characters exist in the limitation of their classes, but Gatsby gets the vertical jump up to the upper class. Although he was born as a son of a poor farmer, he dreamed that he could realize his dream through his sincerity and diligence. In contrast, he breaks the law to make money, and he shows off his wealth through luxurious parties and expensive clothes. But to make money, he even compromises with illegality. Furthermore, Daisy, his real dream, is morally irresponsible and shallow, and is a member of the corrupted upper class like Tom. However, Gatsby's tragedy is not because of his misunderstanding about the object of his dream, but because of his false concept of the American dream. He understood it as a dream that could be achieved, not through diligence or sincerity, but through unjust means. After all, Fitzgerald suggests that the distorted meaning of the American dream in 1920s led to Gatsby's tragedy. It shows well that the desire of the lower class rising up to the upper class is fragile and easily frustrated by the severance and selfishness of the upper

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