Nick details the “string of polo ponies” he owns – another purchase which instantly conveys the social standing of Tom. For Tom, these are not merely possessions – they are the terms on which he approaches society. Fitzgerald deliberately includes the price of the “$350,000 string of pearls” which are his engagement present to Daisy. Instead of showing his love as Gatsby appears to have done, Tom approaches her with a purchased, expensive object and the “external force” which she is seeking to shape her life. This also could be an indication of his ostentatious nature – perhaps further evidence of an obvious carelessness with money.
While both the men are exceptionally wealthy they came into money very differently. Gatsby had to lie and cheat for his money in his later years of his life and Tom was born into prosperity. Tom makes it very clear to Gatsby in the novel that wealth is “in his blood,” causing Gatsby to work even harder to win back Daisy. Gatsby is a very friendly and
Tom Walker is specifically an American antihero as he is selfish and only wants money, unfaithful in his marriage and deals, and is trying to fight back when he realizes consequences of his deal. * Page 2 * In colonial times, when this story takes place, the British use the colonies in America to get natural resources. These resources are used to make money, but the colonies do not benefit from the deals with the British. This relates to the story as Irving describes Tom as a selfish person throughout the story. When the devil offers Tom a deal he would have accepted “However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the
Mrs. Birling to display the greed and ignorance of aristocracy before the war. He shows them as selfish and ignorant and unwilling to admit their mistakes. Mr Birling is stereotyped by Priestly as a pride filled, over confidant,”rather portentous man in his middle fifties but rather provincial in his speech." Some examples of ths are “I say you can ignore all this silly pessimistic talk” and “we're in for a time of steadily increasing prosperity.” Similarly Mrs. Birling is displayed as stuck up and someone who enjoys looking down on other people also Priestley gives us the impression that she thinks wealth and status only are important. Priestly portrays her as a woman obsessed with how she and her family are perceived with in 'high society'.
Furthermore, proposed indirect taxes on luxury goods such as motor cars and petrol would have affected the Lords as they were among the few rich enough to afford such luxuries. The Lords set up a budget protest league and denounced the budget as “confiscation and robbery”, and breaking with convention overwhelmingly vetoed the budget. A less important reason was that the Lords believed the budget amounted to a social revolution. They were worried by the idea of progressive and redistributive taxation which taxes the rich more heavily. They feared once these principles were established they could be extended to ‘soak the rich’ and even out the unfair distribution of wealth in Edwardian Britain.
Brigham Young once said, “Why do we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?” One of the many stories in Tales From the Thousand and One Nights is “The Historic Fart, “ story about a man who lets out a loud fart on his wedding night. He is extremely ashamed and embarrassed, and runs off never to be seen again. This is a great example about how caught up people are in caring about what others think of them. Through the psychoanalytical approach we can see why people care what others think, how it relates to “The Historic Fart”, and how it is still prevalent in today’s culture. Everyone worries about what people think of them at some time or another, but why do we care so much?
He again uses high society families to show changes occurring in society through two other novels, This Side of Paradise and Tender Is the Night. They both take place in the twenties when all everyone was worried about was wealth. Fitzgerald shows this greed in This Side of Paradise when Rosalind won’t marry Amory because he has little money. He also shows in Tender Is the Night how people got away with about anything just because they had money. Fitzgerald looks at the American Dream realistically and sees it can be wonderful yet depressing at the same time.
In this quote when Gatsby asks “Do you like it” its almost like he asking “You like it right, its big enough?”, which shows that he thinks that all Daisy wants is money, so her goals are corrupted. “He’s the man who fixes the World Series back in 1919”(73). This quotes shows that Meyer’s goals are so focused on money that he throws all his morals against cheating away. The result of the Corruption of the American Dream is that motivation to get someone’s dream is gone and they’re just left with empty goals. This is shown when Daisy says “ Do you always watch for the longest day of the year… I always watch… and miss it”(11).
These different social rifts come from a result of greed from the destruction of the American Dream. West Egg represents the “new rich”, where people have made their wealth in a short period of time. West egg has more morals of the two eggs, yet West Egg is still very superficial with their gaudy housing and spending. Nick and Gatsby are both from West Egg, which gives an idea of what “type” of people live in what areas. At the beginning of the book Nick says he lived in West Egg “…the less fashionable of the two…” (10).
28) In this confrontation the difference between the social classes are shown. It shows how Tom looks down on gorge just because he is poor, and how Tom thinks that because he has a higher social status and because he is rich has the power to treat him badly. Tom’s self center and prepotent attitude is shown in the dialogue, and thus representing the moral and social decay that the wealthy people had due to their excesses. In conclusion Fitzgerald exclude the middle class as a critique to the extremes in the social classes, because he wanted to show the contrast between them and the repercussions the social class had on the characters. Through the novel the duality between the rich and the poor is always present, and the effects of the extremes and the insatiable aim of wealth is represented by the valley of ashes.