Final essay

Everyday in America people strive to be the best, to accomplish more than the person to their left, to have the most money in the bank, to have the bigger house, to be superior to the people around them. That is what Americans strive for in the American dream. But this dream has caused America to have a class system. There is lower class, middle class and upper class. Upper class being those who have succeeded in the American Dream and deem themselves above everybody else. America is a land of economic status and power through social stratification and a rigid class system, as displayed by The Great Gatsby and The Rich Brother.

The book The Great Gatsby brings up the topic that not everyone has the fair advantage growing up. If you were born into a rich community you have more advantages to help you succeed in life than you would if you were born in a poor community; “In my younger… years my father gave me some advice.. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone… just remember that all people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you've had”. This is Nick talking about the advice that his father had given him when he was younger. Nick has success as an adult due to his wealthy childhood and how he was brought up. He is comfortable in the upper class and gets along with the other people in the upper class, which is not the case for Gatsby. Gatsby was not brought up in this wealthy lifestyle and it shows because he is not as comfortable in the upper class world as Nick is. He does not relate as well to Daisy and Tom like Nick does because he did not have the experiences that they had as a childhood. This is one way that the upper class stays a tight knit community even if you work very hard like Gatsby did.

Another way that the upper class can stay a tight knit and secluded community is how it looks down at other classes and dismisses them and the work that they do, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and… then retreated back into their money… and let other people clean up the mess that they had made”. Tom and Daisy identify as upperclassmen and they grew up like that. They do whatever they want and take anything down in their path and they leave it because they know that there are people that clean and do those things for them. They disregard anybody and anything that is not of the same status as them. That is another way that the upper class makes sure that there is a clear difference between them and the people that they look down upon. Tom and Daisy may not realize that they are doing it because that is just what they have been used to their whole life, but they are doing it and making the difference even more and more clear. 

The idea that Tom and Daisy did not realize that they were making the difference more clear is also demonstrated in The Rich Brother by Pete when he does not realize that his everyday lifestyle is not what everyone else's life is like. His brother Donald is of the lower class unlike Pete who is part of the upper class: “Later he made the mistake of describing it to Donald, who kept asking how much it cost and then acted appalled when Pete told him. ‘At least i'm trying something new’ Pete said ‘At least i'm breaking the pattern’(74)”. Donald representing the lower class is disgusted by how Pete acts like the amount of money he just spent on trying something new is just an everyday thing. Pete is dismissive towards the fact that people like Donald in the lower class desire to have that amount of freedom with their money. Yet again, unconsciously, the upper class has made the line more defined between them and the classes that they look down to.

The upper class seems to also do this consciously and on purpose. Pete is upset and disappointed in Donald for not being as accomplished as he is and so he yells, “Grow up’ Pete yelled. ‘Get a Mercades’(76)”. Pete as an upperclassman has this idea in his head that you have not grown up if you do not own a fancy car, or have different kinds of luxuries in life. That is what also sets the upper class apart, they have different standards for growing up, different expectations, just making the difference between the classes more defined.

Consciously and unconsciously the upper class, of the rigid class system that America has developed, makes the difference between the class systems defined, clear and prominent. The upper class is full of wealthy people who have connections and power and they look down upon those who are not who they deem as good as them. That is the rigid class system that America has through social stratification, power and economic status.