THE SOCIAL CLASS CONFLICT AS REPRESENTED IN THE

GREAT GATSBYs THROUGH THE LENS OF MARXIST

CRITICSM
A STUDY OF SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH

THE TASK
Submitted in Part Fulfillment for Obtaining
The Subject of Sociology of Literature

Dede Iskandar
2012130014

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITY OF DARMA PERSADA
JAKARTA
2016

ABSTRACT
Dede Iskandar
The Social Class Conflict as Represented in The Great Gatsbys Story Through
The Lens of Marxist Criticsm
A Study of Sociological Approach
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is regarded as a great twentieth-century
American novelist. In many ways his legendary life has had a huge impact on
critics and readers in overshadowing his great work. The 1920s can be seen as a
transition time with a great change in American history from the Victorian period
to modern times and with the huge impact of World War I on peoples lives. It is
only recently that critics have moved away from studying Fitzgeralds work as
that of a merely superficial and historical writer and examined his works in
various other perspectives. In addition to historical and biographical studies,
Marxist theory is an important approach to bring a new depth to our
understanding of his work.
Keywords: marxist, criticsm, social class

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Research
In the middle to late 19th century, Marxism appeared and brought by two
German philosopher namely Karl Marx. Marxist analyses and methodologies have
influenced multiple political ideologies and social movements throughout history.
Marxist understanding has been adopted by academics in the disciplines of
archaeology, anthropology, political science, sociological theory, and etc.
Marxist criticism deals with focusing an ideological content of literary
works through social class distinction. Marxist criticism views a literary works as
a reflection of the social institution and social status from which they come. The
English literary critic and cultural theorist, Terry Eagleton defines Marxism
criticism as a criticism which is not merely sociology of literature, concerned with
how novel get published and mentioned the working class. Its purpose is to
explain the literary work. This means an analysis with a sensitive attention to its
forms, styles and meaning. It also means an analysis which bases on forms, styles
and meaning as a product of particular history.
To analyze a literary work based on Marxism, there are some questions that is
raised by the Marxist literary lens. The writer used several question to answer to
analyze this analysis. They are:

Does the text raise criticism about the emptiness of life in bourgeois

society?

What does the author portray about society?

What is emphasized, what is ignored?

Are characters from all social levels equally sketched?

Are the main problems individual or collective?

CHAPTER 2

FRAMEWORK OF THE THEORIES

In all around the world, someones social status lately is being important. It
is because people live in the society with different backgrounds. And the effect of
those differences are differentiation of social status or nowadays more popular
with social classes in the society.
Those differentiations of social classes also portrayed in Fitzgeralds work
The Great Gatsby. The writer can see from this novel that there are any conflicts
of social classes impressed by every character in their roles in the society. The
writer consider that those differentiations are appeared by a discourse of
materialism in that novel. Materialism is often known as a concept that glorifies
things. We had know before that The Great Gatsby has an inclination to the wealth
as portrayed most in some characters such as Jay Gatsby, Nick, Tom, and Daisy.
Therefore, the writer has a conclusion that this conflict of social classes is an
effect of materialism concept in this novel.
Truly, Marxist criticism also tends to talk about social classes. It is because
Marxism is a materialist philosophy as I said above as cause of differentiation
social classes. Marxism sees progress as coming about through the struggle for
power between different social classes (Peter Barry, 1995: 157).
However, it is probably true to say (as ken Newton does, p.244,
Theory into Practice) that traditional Marxist criticism tends to
deal with history in a fairly generalized way. It is talks about
conflicts between social classes, and clashes of large historical
forces, but contrary to popular belief, it rarely discusses the detail
of a specific historical situation and relates it closely to the
interpretation of a particular literary text (Peter Barry, 1995:
159).
From this theory, we can take the point that Marxist criticism explains that
in the conflict of social classes, which is affected by clashes of large historical
forces. It means that according to Marxist, historical aspects become a main factor
to the differentiation of social classes. Historical forces aspect here is an aspect of
discrimination of black and white; slavery also has big influence to the differential
classes because the authorities control the workers.
4

CHAPTER 3
THE SOCIAL CLASS CONFLICT AS REPRESENTED IN THE GREAT
GATSBYs THROUGH THE LENS OF MARXIST CRITICSM
3.1 The Objection to Socialism
The author narrated his story in summer of 1922. This year has been
chosen as a setting of time was not without reason. It seems that the author wanted
to show something in his story. If we notice the story The Great Gastby, it will
be clear to see that this story told us about the objection to socialism that
happened in America especially New York in 1922. This year is one of the years
where many unprecedented changes happened in America. Jazz music, flapper

culture and bootlegging and other criminal activity happened. The author used
these societal developments of the 1920 to narrate Gatsbys stories.
Since the many unprecedented changes, objection to socialism appeared.
The author showed in this story by making a very distinctive description between
the poor and the rich people. In the story, the author arrange an unsuccessful affair
between Tom who came from the high social class and rich people with Myrtle
who lived in Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is the wasteland left behind by
the rich. The people who call it home live in extreme poverty. The Valley
symbolized the delusion and futility of the American Dream. Poor people like the
George Wilsons (Myrtles husband) must scrape for a living in a place destroyed
and abandoned by the rich.
The author also told the reader every character in the story almost all
materialistic. For example, the description of the character of Daisy that was too
materialistic. She was not really in love with her husband. Pure love was not the
reason she got married. Despite that she ever fell in love with her husband, in the
beginning she just adored every luxury that her husband provided for her. This
also happened to Myrtle toward Tom Buchanan. Besides that, the main character
is also told in the story as a man who pursued and adored the wealth and luxury.
3.2 The Social Class Conflict
In The Great Gatsby, we can apply Marxist theory to analyze the conflict
of social classes. Generally, in this novel really tend to explore wealth aspect as if
want to represent power between upper and lower class. And we can see it from
the beginning of the story in which Nick as a narrator tell his status first.
I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father
snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental
decencies is parceled out unequally at birth (Chapter 1: 1).
Nick is fully aware of how important class is to personal identity,
especially in the society in which lives. He knows that he was born into a life of
privilege and a certain amount of wealth. The rich may be "above" him, but there

are many people "below" him, and Nick keeps the influence of class in mind with
everyone he meets.
This novel also emphasize the distinction between the social status of
white people are seen to have power over blacks. Tom reflected it from his
statement to Nick.
"Well, its a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if
we dont look out the white race will bewill be utterly submerged.
Its all scientific stuff; its been proved." (Chapter 1: 16)
"Well these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her
impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. Its up to
us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will
have control of things." (Chapter 1: 16)
Nicks playful suggestion that they talk about something less upper class
gets Tom ranting about race and class. Tom thinks he is at the top of society, and
wants to stay there.
Besides high class and lower class, in this novel also I think there is a
discourse about feudal and bourgeois. I can say that the terms old money is
representation of feudal people and nouveau riche is representation of bourgeois
people as a concept of Marxist theory of class struggle. And this concept is
supported by Marxist theory as it said below;
Thus, the conflict in King Leur might be read as being really about
the conflict of class interest between the rising class (the bourgeois) and the
falling class (the feudal overlords) (Peter Barry, 1995: 167).
In addition, in this novel, Tom represents feudal people with his wealth
and authority; whereas Gatsby represents bourgeois people with his effort to get
the wealth and changes his social status. This is a complicated comment. We are
thinking that Tom is referring to the old money way of life, a way of life that is
inherited. The West Egg lifestyle or the world populated with the nouveau riche.

Furthermore, we have Toms comment that most newly rich people are
bootleggers this was true in some cases, but the generalization allows Tom to
write off all of the nouveau riche as crooks or imposters. Nick stands up for
Gatsby possibly because Nick is starting to like the guy.
"Who is this Gatsby anyhow?" demanded Tom suddenly. "Some big
bootlegger?"
"Whered you hear that?" I inquired.
"I didnt hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are
just big bootleggers, you know."
"Not Gatsby," I said shortly. (Chapter 6: 115)

On the other sides, there is a distinction out of wealth; it is about a

distinction of status between man and woman. As in this novel portrayed in which
girl is considered as a fool one and did not has a value at all in the society.
Itll show you how I have gotten to feel about things. Well, she was
less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out
of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse
right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, so I
turned my head away and wept. All right, I said, I am glad its a
girl. And I hope she will be a fool-thats the best thing a girl can be
in this world, a beautiful little fool. (Chapter 1: 20)
From this quotation, we can know that there is a different status between
boy and girl. It is proved by Daisy itself that indirectly she admit that boy is better
than girl and she realize it.