The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath

An excerpt from an essay considering the presentation of class in both novels

By Kitty W. - Year 13

After World War I, the widening class divide within 20th-century American society created widespread hardship for the poor, but prosperity and material comfort for the rich, and this inequality is clearly exemplified in both The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Both authors evoke sympathy for the working class – from their exclusion from the American Dream, to their social conditioning through exploitation – whilst criticising the conspicuous consumption of the upper class. The texts are united by their exploration of the rich’s exploitation of the poor for personal gain, which perpetuates the class divide and prevents American society from achieving full prosperity.

Both authors explore the theme of poverty due to exploitation from the rich, which was rife in the 20th century. Steinbeck aims to didactically expose the conditions the poor were forced into by the upper class throughout America. The novel’s initial image of the Dust Bowl, where "every moving thing lifted the dust into the air", demonstrates the severity of the current drought and the conditions many Americans had to live through in the 1930s due to the restriction of crop and water availability. By opening the novel with an image of suffocation, Steinbeck gives the reader an insight into the reality of those in poverty, thus evoking sympathy. The novel also ends with metaphorical suffocation in the form of a large flood (an allusion to the Biblical Flood); Bluestone argues that "the water is the emblem of destruction" (1972), aligning this flood with devastating qualities that have the ability to rid the Joads of all their hopes. The novel’s circular structure – it begins and ends in desolation – reinforces Steinbeck’s ultimate aim of exposing the difficulties of being lower class and the near-impossibility of social mobility.

Through his writing, Steinbeck sought to educate his readers and expose the appalling penury that the rich inflict onto the less fortunate, and yet it was banned and viewed as a Communist piece of writing. This critiques American society’s reluctance to acknowledge reality, which was what Steinbeck wanted to prevent through his novel. The Great Gatsby also includes 41 the motif of dust early in the novel with "The Valley of the Ashes", where there are "spasms of bleak dust" and "ash-grey men" which "stir up an impenetrable cloud". Like Steinbeck, Fitzgerald utilises a semantic field of suffocation to reflect the stifling poverty within the town, due to the rich’s consumption. The biblical link to "The Valley of the Shadow of Death" in Psalm 23 – representing mortality and the destruction of the human body – further presents the place as destitute. After World War I, technological advances and consumer-oriented production transformed American society. The neglected area between the rich West and East Eggs displays the consequences of a reckless pursuit of wealth and the uncommercialised side of American society.

Both novels present the "American Dream" as a concept that perpetuates the class divide within society, due to its unattainability. The term was coined by James Adams (1931), who described it as a "dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement". This capitalist ideology influenced American society regardless, unifying everybody in the belief that a better life was possible: both novels contradict this optimism. Like many other Oklahoman families, the Joads' American Dream lies with the hope of a better life in California. Due to the Californian Gold Rush promising people wealth in return for their labour, the state is portrayed as a promised land, offering the work of "pickin’ grapes an’ oranges an’ peaches. That’d be nice work". California, it is implied, is a promised land. The fruit imagery suggests abundance and fertility, therefore lulling the Joads into a false sense of reality.

Fitzgerald also incorporates this concept into The Great Gatsby, and not only presents the lower class as unable to achieve the dream, but also the upper class. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes in the Valley of the Ashes is the first symbol in which the unattainability of the American Dream can be recognised – "the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic". The intimidating billboard becomes symbolic of God watching over the city, assessing the poor and judging the rich. Alternatively, it could be viewed as symbolizing a failed business and, by extension, the failure of the American Dream; the eyes "dimmed a little by the paintless days under the sun and rain brood on over the solemn dumping ground". Fitzgerald’s use of "paintless" highlights the lack of vitality within the Valley, giving the impression of deterioration and depicting the unattainability of the dream.

However, the poor are not only the ones confined by the dream: the rich are too. Due to Gatsby living the idealised American lifestyle of ostentation, wealth, and consumption, many would consider him to be fulfiling the promise of what is considered to be the American Dream. Despite this, Fitzgerald presents Gatsby as unable to be fully content in himself, and always striving for more than he has. This is symbolised by the green light across the sound –"he stretched out his arms towards the dark water… I distinguished nothing except a single green light". The position of the light on the dock at the end of tDaisy Buchanan's garden, and the fact he "stretched out" towards it, reflects how he is yearning for her, wants to renew their relationship and believes she is what will finally bring him fulfilment. The unobtainability of the dream of achieving Daisy is emphasised by the fact that she "seemed as close as a star to the moon". Later in the novel, it could be argued that Gatsby achieves this dream, as he begins to see Daisy and rekindle their relationship; however, this causes him to return to reality and realise that "now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one". Here, Fitzgerald highlights Gatsby’s inability to be content with his life, because as one dream is achieved, it loses its importance – hence why he is always striving for more. The Dream is ultimately unattainable. Staveley suggests that "Gatsby has lost sight of his original ideals and strives instead to reach a place he has created in his own mind", one which is "an impossible perfection" (Staveley, 2014), a figment of the imagination that serves only as a psychological motivation to achieve greater prosperity. Through the pursuit of this dream, Gatsby has perhaps disregarded his initial motivations and replaced them with his desire for Daisy, therefore setting himself up for failure. Ultimately, both authors present the American Dream as a fleeting concept, purely designed to maintain the capitalist society throughout America, rather than to encourage people to forge better, more prosperous lives.

To conclude, both Fitzgerald and Steinbeck explore the theme of class within an early 20th-century American society in similar ways, due to their overall conclusion that the rich take advantage of the poor for personal profit. The exploration of the concept of the American Dream further solidifies the wealth divide, as it serves as a false promise of affluence and success to those who follow it, most pertinently in the case of the Joad family and T.J. Eckleburg. Lastly, the fact that women of a lower class are presented as much more ambitious and driven to lead a better life, when compared to the idle and passive life of Daisy Buchanan, paints the upperclass in a negative light. Ultimately, both texts explore the ever-increasing class divide during the 20th century and how it is encouraged by the upper class’s exploitation of the lower classes, and the resulting hopelessness of the latter.