The Great Gatsby Group

Question:

hummer1
hummer1
Student
High School - 11th Grade

Can someone give some information about the rivalry between the established families and the nouveau riche?

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Posted by hummer1 on Monday February 16, 2009 at 4:45 AM and tagged with nouveau riche, the great gatsby.

Answers:

  1. parkerlee
    parkerlee Teacher

    eNotes Editor

    Tom Buchanan exemplifies the New England jet-setter from an established family line where lineage is as important as wealth. Gatsby, on the other hand, is a Midwestern farmer's son who made his fortune (rather illicitly!) from bootlegging whiskey during the Prohibition years. Gatsby's easy rise on the social scale is of course a provocation to such established families (already deprived by law of holding any title of nobility, as in England).

    The following enote references treat in depth several "myths" attached to the definition of the social elite during the Jazz Age and the background of Jay Gatsby as compared to that of the narrator Nick Carraway.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/great-gatsby-salem/great-gatsby-020...
    http://www.enotes.com/great-gatsby/critique-american-uppe...

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    Posted by parkerlee on Monday February 16, 2009 at 5:50 AM