The Great Gatsby Group

Question:

a92
a92
Student
High School - 11th Grade

In The Great Gatsby, what is the difference betwen East Egg and West Egg?

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Posted by a92 on Tuesday June 30, 2009 at 8:36 PM and tagged with east egg, setting, the great gatsby, theme, west egg.

Answers:

  1. mshurn
    mshurn Teacher
    College - Freshman

    eNotes Editor

    East Egg and West Egg are both enormously wealthy suburbs of New York City, located on Long Island where they face the ocean. East Egg is the home of those people who enjoy the highest social prestige, as well as their money. Their fortunes have been inherited and their roots run deep in American society. Theirs is "old money." The East Eggers place great value on tradition, family background, social convention, and manners, and they look with contempt upon others who were not born to their kind of wealth. The Buchanans live in East Egg. Tom and Daisy are example of the old money and social snobbery of East Egg.

    Those who live in West Egg, like Gatsby, are also very wealthy, but they are the social newcomers who have made their money through commerce (legal or otherwise). They lack the sense of entitlement found among the East Eggers, and they are not "refined" or "polished" in their manners. Gatsby represents this social class. He owns a mansion and dresses well, but he lacks the background of an old and well established family. He is uneducated. He has a great deal of money, but he displays it very conspicuously--a sign of terrible taste to someone like Tom Buchanan.

    By developing the social differences between East Egg and West Egg, Fitzgerald develops one the novel's themes. No matter how wealthy Gatsby might become, he would never belong to the Buchanans' upper social class because he was not born into it. He would always be an outsider.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/great-gatsby/character-analysis
    http://www.enotes.com/great-gatsby/summary
    http://www.enotes.com/great-gatsby/themes

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    Posted by mshurn on Tuesday June 30, 2009 at 11:21 PM

  2. abergind
    abergind Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    The biggest difference is how the money was made. In the East Egg it is old family money, like Daisy. In the West Egg it is the folks who "earn" their money if you well, like Nick and Gatsby. Gatsby throws the lavish parties that he does in hopes of luring the East Eggs over to his West side so that in turn he will have a place where he is comfortable in  confronting the East eggers. It also attributes to the working rich and the Leisure rich in a way that the West Egg have to work they do not choose to work. In the East Egg you can work if you choose to if you are a man, but you certainly do not have to.

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    Posted by abergind on Monday July 6, 2009 at 11:01 AM