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Prominent Themes in The Great Gatsby
Society and Class


v The novel is set amongst wealthy, educated people who have little
concern about people outside of their ‘social circle’
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v They are not concerned about politics but instead they care about how
they are perceived by society
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v In the novel the only element not restricted to one class is unhappiness
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Love
v The novel suggests that what people believe to be love is, in fact, often only a
dream
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She is not the same person she once was
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v Love is a source of conflict in the novel as well, driving men to fight and
ultimately causing three deaths
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Visions of America
v America is presented mostly through class: the rich, the poor, and everyone in
between are identified by how much money they have
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There’s Wilson, the working-class
man who has to work constantly to stay afloat
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Then
there is Nick, whose upper-middle-class existence allows him many luxuries,
but not everything he wants
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v In the novel, the American Dream seems corrupted
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Not to mention, no amount of hard work can
change where Gatsby came from, and the old money people maintain their air
of superiority because of that simple fact
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Wealth

Prominent Themes in The Great Gatsby
v In the novel, wealth can be distinguished from class; it is possible to achieve
great wealth without being accepted into the elite class
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George Wilson, for
example, is unable to ‘go West’ with his wife because he hasn’t got enough
money
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v The life of ease and luxury that Tom and the others enjoy contrasts sharply
with the stranglehold of poverty containing Myrtle and George Wilson, or the
life from which Gatsby emerges
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v Although Fitzgerald presents wealthy society as careless and selfish,
ultimately all of the characters in the book, regardless of wealth and poverty,
fail to demonstrate loyalty and friendship
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In The Great Gatsby, materialism may
appear to be beneficial, but it is an impediment to the achievement of lifelong
desires
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Gatsby is in
love with a girl from the past and is unable to have her again in the present
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v The narrator indicates in the final lines of the text that nobody can ever reach
the future – ‘it is a beacon of light that calls to us, but even as we try to reach
it, we are beaten back into the past
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Daisy, on
the other hand, is ultimately able to fact reality and live in the present
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No one is happy with
marriage, with love, with life in general, and they all destroy the lives of
others in seeking to fix it
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Isolation
v Isolation in the novel is not the same as being alone
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v The narrator reveals his fear of loneliness when he mentions his thirtieth
birthday; his fear of aging seems to be tied to his fear of isolation
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v Daisy’s need to be adored is probably the cause of her own fear of isolation
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v Gender roles are in part decided by societal roles, as Tom’s upper class
masculinity (strength, intimidation, virility) is contrasted with Wilson’s lower
class version (hard working nature)
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Women take physical abuse at the hands of Tom’s overly
macho persona, which seems all right of his gender at the time
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Education
v In the novel, education is a must-have for the socially elite
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v Mr
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v The use of different dialects works to reveal the differences between the
working class and the upper class
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While Nick Carraway claims
that he is ‘one of the few honest people’ he has ever known, the reader comes
to doubt even his integrity
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v The text seems to suggest that all human beings are inherently dishonest – as
well as selfish, hypocritical, and destructive

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