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Essay: Explore Race, Wealth & Class in “The Great Gatsby” & “The Passing

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  • Published: 1 April 2019*
  • Last Modified: 23 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,321 (approx)
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  • Tags: The Great Gatsby essays

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An authors’ writing is the art of framing and presenting his thoughts to his/her leaders. A great author can address the various social concerns through his/her writing by use of characters who are given various roles to pass a certain message in a certain way. The ideologies of class, gender and wealth are well communicated by the writers of The Great Gatsby and The Passing. The use of such characters such as Buchanan in The Great Gatsby and Bellew in The Passing have brought out the writer’s message quite clearly.

In the book the Passing, the author has clearly addressed the issue of race. The phrase passing means changing from one state to another. With the introduction of Jack Bellew, who gives racist remarks in the presence of the three women. In spite of the fact that Irene tries to stay away from further engagement with Clare, she later visits Clare for tea alongside another adolescence companion, Gertrude Martin. Around the end of the visit, Clare’s fiancée John (Jack) Bellew arrives. Uninformed that every one of the three ladies is dark, Jack communicates some extremely supremacist perspectives and makes the ladies uneasy. In any case, the ladies play it off with an end goal to keep up Clare’s mystery personality. A while later, Irene and Gertrude conclude that Clare’s circumstance is excessively perilous for them, making it impossible to keep taking up with her. Irene gets a letter of statement of regret from Clare, however, demolishes it and goes ahead with her existence with her significant other, Brian, and two children (Larsen 2007).

“Re-experience,” comes back to the present, with Irene having gotten this new letter from Clare. After Irene overlooks, Clare’s letter, Clare visits in individual so Irene reluctantly consents to see her. When it is raised that Irene serves on the board for the “Negro Welfare League” Clare welcomes herself to their up and coming move, in spite of Irene’s exhorting against it for apprehension that Jack will discover. Clare goes to the move and has a good time without her husband discovering, which urges her to keep investing energy in Harlem. Irene and Clare resume their adolescence fellowship, and Clare every now and again visits Irene’s home.

As Irene’s association with her lover has turned out to be progressively full. Mindful of her companion’s allure, Irene gets to be persuaded that her significant other is taking part in an extramarital entanglement with Clare (Larsen 2007). Amid a shopping trip with her unmistakably dark companion Felise Freeland, Irene experiences Jack, who gets aware of her and by augmentation, Clare’s racial status. Irene considers cautioning Clare about Jack’s recently discovered information yet rules against it, stressed that the pair’s separation may urge her better half to abandon her for Clare. Later, Clare goes with Irene and Brian to a gathering facilitated by Felise.

The social occasion is hindered by Jack, who blames Clare for being a black. The writer uses the words “doomed filthy ni**er”. Irene hurries to Clare, who is standing by an open window. All of a sudden, Clare drops out of the window from the top floor of the building onto the ground, where she is pronounced dead by the visitors who in the end assemble at the site. Regardless of Whether she has fallen incidentally, was pushed by Irene or Bellew, or conferred suicide is misty. The book closes with Irene’s divided anguish at Clare’s demise (Larsen 2007).

From the book the passing, it’s evident that the theme of racism has been well put across by the use of Jack Bellew. He had been in the dark about the identity of his wife and her friends. All live in fear that if he knows, he will depart her and live with another woman he had been in living with. When it comes to his consent that her wife is from a different race, he over reacts which causes her to fall from the rooftop leaving the leader with some questions. The leader is left to contemplate about the consequences of Jacks reactions which he might be taken into account by the authorities.

Tom Buchanan is a wealthy individual and is married to Daisy Buchanan. He did not see any problem about his relationship with Myrtle Wilson, but when he starts to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation. Later, he is suspected of killing Gatsby.

Buchanan was one of the luckiest people because he is from a wealthy family with a long standing high-class record (Fitzgerald 2004).  He moved east during his college years where he met Nick Caraway. At the university’s social club. This is used by the writer to show that he did not have good morals and was spending his father’s money rather than engaging in his school work. At Yale, Buchanan was a football star; as Nick records, Tom was “one of those men who achieve such an intense restricted magnificence at twenty-one that everything subsequently relishes of disappointment”.

Presently thirty, Tom has turned out to be hugely affluent from acquiring his family’s fortune, yet he remains physically capable with his athletic body and self-approving eyes. Tom has been known not on issues starting all alone wedding trip with Daisy after he got included with a housemaid at their lodging. Amid the Summer-long kinship with Nick, Tom consistently saw Myrtle Wilson (Fitzgerald 2004).

The author portrays money or wealth by the use the gold hat and the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. This color of gold and green are used figuratively to represent wealth. They are distinct from each other in glittering. The author uses the colors to show the different kinds of wealth possessed by individuals in this novel. The wealth in possession and ownership of Tom Buchanan and Daisy is inherited wealth. On the other hand, Gatsby works for the wealth he owns (Fitzgerald 2004).

The wealth possessed by the two characters shows how various people uses their wealth. Wealth protects Tom Buchanan from being held accountable. Daisy runs away with murder due to the influence of their wealth. The wealth of Gatsby even though considerable leaves him more vulnerable.

The authors of the two books have brought to light the effects of racism, wealth, and class. All the characters who ended in tragic ways such as the death of Clare in the hands of Jack show how the possessions of wealth and racism bring a bad omen to him. His wrath and anger which he unrelished on Clare leads him to trouble. On the other hand, Buchanan is involved in extramarital relationships. The escaping with murder by his wife just because of wealth, augmented with his rotten behavior tarnishes the family name as suggested by Nick when he says,” you know what I think of you concerning Gatsby’s death.” That was regarding Gatsby’s death.

They also depict the adulterous nature of men. Both Buchanan and Bellew are engaged in outside marriage relationships. The fact that both characters are considered wealthy people makes them have other relationships apart from their partners. Probably, the wealth they had helped to keep their wives since they could not divorce them due to their wealth.

The authors caution the leader. He/she has to take caution when dealing with other people in the society. The leader gets moral lessons from the two individuals concerning racism, wealth, and class (Yosso 2005). The leader is informed that that anyone who indulges the vices stated by the authors, can get into great trouble. None of the characters who did it ended in a good way.

 

References

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “The Great Gatsby.” (2004).

Larsen, Nella. Passing. Modern Library, 2007.

Yosso*, Tara J. “Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth.” Race ethnicity and education 8.1 (2005): 69-91.

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