Setting in the Great Gatsby

Right in the centre of New York is the "artificial, self-constructed" city-life of Manhattan. It is a place where people can recreate themselves without being categorised and judged on their place in society. In this setting, the socioeconomic division created by the W.A.S.P society is slowly closed, as characters from Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, unite with one another confidently, without any fear of being judged. Geographically close, yet far away from Manhattan is East Egg; a place where the association of the “rich” and poor is unheard of, in fact, a place that closes themselves off from the rest of the city, doing anything to avoid evenness in the social ladder, therefore killing the “American dream”.

Manhattan provides an urban and industrial setting for outcasts. It is a place where people can "throw off the predetermining weight of their past”, “invent” themselves, and “climb” the social ladder to, in Gatsby’s case “buy himself a very classy piece of female goods”. This wealth is easily “derived from alcohol and oil” which together with the shooting of Rosy Rosenthal indicates the prominence of gangs and “dirty” money in Manhattan’s underworld. Conversely, Nick Caraway, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby commute into the city for their respective lines of work, while the women are left behind, suggesting it i’s a place of gender distinction; although not so much of class division, as Tom only interacts with his mistress in the city, using the city to hide his going-on from the people he values on Long Island.

Gatsby tries desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have attended Oxford; because decisions in the East were made “by some force of”, “love”, “money” and “practicality”. However, it is the difference of “old money” and “new money” that separates Jay Gatsby from Daisy Buchanan of the East Egg.

In East Egg, a lot takes place through innuendo and suggestion, with very little violence or even arguments taking