This essay focuses on location and class in The Great Gatsby. The essay argues that the aspect of location has a defining role in the characters' effort to become a part of the leisure class. The essay will show that some characters use location to elevate their social status and consequently become members of the leisure class: Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom and Daisy Buchanan all use location to elevate their social standing. In addition the essay will show how location works against the characters Myrtle and George in their desire for a better life, and consequently they have to use other methods to try to acquire what they want. Thus, as location is shown to be a method for elevating the characters' social status it also becomes apparent that this method is only available for those who already have a substantial amount of money.

The Great Gatsby är en berömd roman som först publicerades år 1926 och skrevs av F. Scott Fitzgerald. Den är väldigt kritisk till den Amerikanska drömmen, ett koncept som har blivit starkt kopplat till kapitalismen. Detta gör det lättare att analysera texten från ett Marxistiskt perspektiv trots att marxism aldrig nämns i romanen. Denna C-uppsats kommer att fokusera på vad som motiverar karaktärerna i romanen. Eftersom romanens huvudperson Jay Gatsby redan har blivit analyserad i väldigt många artiklar och uppsatser så kommer han inte analyseras i denna uppsats. Istället kommer den att fokusera på de andra framstående karaktärerna som Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, George och Nick. När deras motivationer analyseras genom ett Marxistiskt analytiskt perspektiv framkommer det väldigt tydligt att dessa karaktärer har insett att samhället de lever i inte uppfyller deras behov, och att detta kommersialiserade samhälle är orsaken för deras olycka. / The Great Gatsby is a famous novel first published in 1926, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel frequently criticizes the American dream, a concept which has become strongly linked to capitalism. As such, the text lends itself very well to Marxist theory despite not mentioning Marxism in the novel.  This C-essay will focus on what motivates the characters of this novel. Since the novels main character Jay Gatsby has been analyzed in many articles and essays he will not be analyzed in this essay. Instead it will focus on the other prominent characters such as Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, George and Nick. When their motivations are analyzed through a Marxist analytical perspective it becomes very clear that these characters have realized that society is not fulfilling their needs, and that their commercialized society is the cause of their unhappiness.

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Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera påverkan av social klass och status i F. Scott Fitzgeralds roman The Great Gatsby med Max Webers teori om klass och status som utgångspunkt. Detta sker genom analys av karaktärernas relationer och beteende ur ett perspektiv där klass och status är centralt. Resultatet visar hur klass och status påverkar karaktärernas beslut, relationer och liv. Det leder till ett oundvikligt slut för Jay Gatsbys och Daisy Buchanans kärleksaffär samtidigt som konsekvenserna av karaktärernas handlingar påverkas av deras klasstillhörighet.

This thesis examines hierarchies that affect a man’s status in the hierarchy between masculinities in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In a close reading of the novel, the most important concepts in the thesis are hegemonic masculinity and self-surveillance, which both contribute to the idea of a hierarchy between masculinities. While masculinities in modernist novels have been studied, the hierarchies between masculinities have not been well explored in The Great Gatsby. I suggest that the most notable men in the novel, Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and Tom Buchanan, survey certain features of each other to know their own place in the hierarchy between masculinities. Divided into three sections, this paper first defines Raewyn Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity with the help of David Buchbinder, and then the notion’s connection to Michel Foucault’s theory of panopticism. The paper then studies the hierarchies that affect a man’s position in the hierarchy between masculinities in Gatsby. Lastly, the paper examines how men organise each other into a hierarchy by surveying themselves in contrast with other men’s masculinities.

The overview of contributions to metaphor theory in Chapters 1 and 2, examined in reference to recent scholarship, suggests that the current theory of metaphor derives from long-standing traditions that regard metaphor as a crucial process of cognition. This overview calls to attention the necessity of a closer inspection of previous theories of metaphor. Chapter 3 takes initial steps in synthesizing views of domains of inquiry into cognitive processes of the human mind. It draws from cognitive models developed in linguistics and anthropology, taking into account hypotheses put forth by psychologists like Jung. It sets the stage for an analysis that intends to further understanding of how the East-West dichotomy guides, influences, and expresses cognitive processes. Although linguist George Lakoff denies the existence of a connection between metaphors, myths, and archetypes, Chapter 3 illustrates the possibility of a relationship among these phenomena. By synthesizing theoretical approaches, Chapter 3 initiates the development of a model suitable for the analysis of the East-West dichotomy as exercised in Chapter 4. As purely emergent from bodily experience, however, neither the concept of the East nor the concept of the West can be understood completely. There exist cultural experiences that may, depending on historical and social context, override bodily experience inclined to favor the East over the West because of the respective connotations of place of birth of the sun and place of death of the sun. This kind of overriding cultural meaning is based on the “typical, frequently recurring and widely shared interpretations of some object, abstract entity, or event evoked in people as a result of similar experiences. To call these meanings ‘cultural meanings' is to imply that a different interpretation is evoked in people with different characteristic experiences. As such, various interpretations of the East-West image-schema exist simultaneously in mutually exclusive or competing forms, as the analysis of Gatsby and the reversal of the values of East and West in the context of colonizing and counter-colonizing attitudes suggests.

The purpose of this essay is to perform a comparative psychoanalytic reading of The Great Gatsby (1925) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) in terms of the titular characters’ narcissistic behavior. My claim is that Jay Gatsby and Dorian Gray can be seen as different depictions of narcissism. Literary critics in previous research characterized Gatsby and Gray as narcissists, but, there has not been a comparison between the two with focus on their narcissism. Gatsby and Gray display crucial differences which suggests that they portray narcissism in different ways. Theodore Millon identified four subtypes of the original narcissistic personality in order to better identify different types of narcissists. My aim is to use his subtypes to identify, and provide the causes and effects of Gatsby’s and Gray’s particular narcissistic behavior. My analysis indicates that Gatsby can be seen as a fictional illustration of the unprincipled and compensatory narcissist while Gray can be viewed as a fictional characterization of the amorous narcissist.

The period following World War I can be characterized in literature by the trauma and changes that promoted crises of masculinity. These crises, however, are not discussed between the men that suffer similar feelings of insecurity and anxiety; not approached as a tension in need of resolution. Exploring the narrative voices of Nick, Jake, Darl and Anse in The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and As I Lay Dying, this thesis addresses the ways in which this unspoken phenomenon is essential to the modernist male narrative. I propose that, despite the widespread nature of this phenomenon, it is the voice of the individual – the preoccupations of his consciousness – that is the most appropriate point through which to examine these crises of masculinity.

This essay discusses how women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925) are portrayed in different ways. During this time between the world wars, progressive women walked the streets of New York. These ‘New Women’ wore short dresses, cut their hair, smoked and drank in public, and showed interest in politics and education. The New Woman is portrayed in different versions in the female characters Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson. These characters are also representations of the patriarchal idea of women as ‘good girls’ and ‘bad girls’, depending on how well they adapt to and fit into the traditional gender roles. Through a discussion of how Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle are portrayed as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, the essay shows how the ‘bad girls’ in the novel are punished by patriarchy by being described unfavorably by the narrator or by suffering socially in a society with patriarchal values. / Den här uppsatsen diskuterar hur kvinnorna i F. Scott Fitzgeralds verk Den store Gatsby (1925) skildras på olika sätt. USA började förändras under mellankrigstiden, bland annat började en kvinnorörelse som resulterade i en ”ny typ av kvinna”. Kvinnorna började bära korta klänningar, klippte håret, drack och rökte offentligt samt intresserade sig för utbildning och politik. Den här nya kvinnan skildras på olika vis i de kvinnliga huvudkaraktärerna Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker och Myrtle Wilson. Men dessa karaktärer fungerar även som representationer av den patriarkala idén om att kvinnor är uppdelade i två kategorier: ’duktig flicka’ och ’dålig flicka’ beroende på hur väl de följer de traditionella könsrollerna. Genom att diskutera hur Daisy, Jordan och Myrtle är porträtterade som ’duktiga’ och ’dåliga’ visar uppsatsen hur de ’dåliga’ blir bestraffade av patriarkatet genom att bli ofördelaktigt beskrivna av berättaren eller bestraffade socialt i ett samhälle som genomsyras av patriarkala värderingar.