Marxist literary critics
tend to look for tensions and contradictions within literary works. This is
appropriate because Marxism was originally formulated to analyze just such
tensions and contradictions within society. Marxist literary critics also see literature
as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is
linked to larger social questions. Since Marxism is a belief system which can
be used to analyze society at the grandest or most detailed level, Marxist
literary criticism is ultimately part of a much larger effort to uncover the
inner workings of society
1. Title of the Book – The
Great Gatsby: Gatsby became rich
because, most probably Cody – the owner of the yatch, left him money but at the
same time he is was committed to earning money at an early stage in his life.
And the adjective Great added to the word noun, accounts for Fitzgerald reason
why a man could be called a great that is he struggled hard to achieve the love
of his life by trying to raise his stature. The word “Great” is added to
emphasize the fact that he rose from rags to riches, and this fact should be
respected and valued.
Nick:
“I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were
shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really
accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that
Jay
Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of
himself. He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just
that--and he must be about His Father's Business,
the
service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a
seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was
faithful to the end.”
2. Inner workings of elite
class: Jonathan
Wolff says in his article on “Karl Marx" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition) “Capitalism's dirty secret is that it is not a
realm of harmony and mutual benefit but a system in which one class systematically
extracts profit from another.”
Tom
makes Nick see his girl friend Myrtle (Myrtle is married to the man who own the
gas station – thus poor as compared to Tom). Tom has an apartment where he sees
Myrtle. It the inner workings of society whereby Nick is Daisy’s cousin yet
won’t reveal to Daisy that Tom is having an affair. Instead he himself uses
Tom’s party to homosexual experience with Mr. McKee, although he had a girl
friend in New Jersey and had an affair with Jordan. Thus the morals build
around Tom and Nick are build around thin thread broking down by desires.
Gatsby,
because he had struggled hard enough, foolishly tries to understand the
workings of the rich elite. But it turns out he did not make up, himself with
as a master conman’s character for the elite class, as a consequence struggles
to come across as an member of an elite class. As Nick had suspicions that
whether Gatsby belonged to the rich class or not and at the same time, Gatsby
using a term like “old sport” doesn’t fit well with the elite Tom. And finally,
Gatsby’s revelation that he only went Oxford for five months and “can't really
call myself (himself) an Oxford man." Takes him out of elite class.
3. Class difference gives
power to Tom and takes power away from Myrtle:
Myrtle:
"That dog? That dog's a boy."
Tom: "It's a
bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten
more dogs with it."
These dialogues shows the
class difference and stature of mistress like Myrtle who get’s no credit for
being in a relationship instead becomes an object to be used whenever Tom
wishes. Myrtle says that the dog is a boy, because he saw in Tom a man who
should follow his command. Myrtle through engaging in a relationship with Tom,
sees herself powerful. But she had to come into contact with reality when Tom
decisively says, and aggressively persues his point that the dogs’s not a boy,
so to suggest that he is in command and not in control. Simply, because he can
through away money not only for one dog but ten dogs. Clearly putting forward
the point that, money can buy her emotions and she can have “more” only because
he controls her, and not she. Myrtle is having a secret affair with Tom, and in
class driving society, Myrtle becomes a product to be sold. Myrtle couldn’t
bear to live with George, as he had rented the coat and gave it back after
their marriage which devastated her. George is as much of an exploiter as
Myrtle is because he never tells Myrtle that is poor enough not to buy a new
coat even for his marriage. For Myrtle, George is like Clym Yeobright of
Hardy’s in Return of the Native; a loving husband yes, but incapable of
changing the scene, incapable of causing change. Change in terms of money and
place. George couldn’t satisfy Myrtle need for change for the better and
likewise for Eustacia, the Wildeve cannot produce change for her and ultimately
she plans to flee with Wildeve, her only hope for change and a man wanting to
uphold and raise his stature. George says to Myrtle “You may fool me but you
can't fool God!” as to suggest that the class he belongs needs to be justified
in someone eyes and God is there to catch you. George is helpless like Clym but
at the same time blameworthy because when a relationship starts to build one
should be able to understand each other needs, and if they cannot comprise even
after they are married, as in the case of Myrtle and Eustacia – they must be
given a choice to do the necessary bit, that is, raise their stature the way
they want.
4. Application of Marxism in
the light of characters of Daisy and Gatsby: Daisy is also an
opportunist, seeing Gatsby after a long time, her love did spark but at the
same time her emotions boils down to her stragem-of-living, “the best thing a
girl can be in this world, [is to be] a beautiful little fool." And that’s
what she projects through his image and wants her child to be, because Tom had
left after an hour when he heard it was a baby girl. Underlying view Daisy
projects through her dialogues is that a female is powerless. And looking back
as Daisy’s life.
5. Exercise of Dominance
through intellectual superiority: In Schooling and
capitalism: a sociological reader by Madeleine MacDonald
“The intellectuals are the
dominant group's 'deputies' exercising the subaltern functions of social
hegemony and political ... confidence … and “this consent is “historically” caused by the prestige which the
dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of
production.” Gatsby with his will power turned upside down his economic state,
and most important he wanted a change because he knew where he came from, he
knew his roots therefore to adjust himself in the world of New York elite was
just another business deal, he successfully wanted to pursue – and Tom on the other
hand being the former Yale football player cannot believe that how a name like
Oxford could be attached with Gatsby. Thus, he constantly tries to project his
thought over to Gatsby that he is not from the wealthy class, in a way, trying
to exercise his hegemony. Economically powerful class, and in Tom’s case, an
age-old aristocrat tries to push Gatsby’s stature down, trying to make a distinction between his higher class
and his newly rich behaviour. Conveying the underlying meaning that elite class
is jack of all trades, being physically powerful, a noble by birth and having
the courage to inquire about Gatsby’s academic background, reveals that he is shallow and behaving in a such a
way because he has to maintain his standing in society.
6.
Class conflict invokes
Tom’s anger to the extent that he triggers George to kill the owner of the car:
Tom
invokes Wilson to kill Gatsby when he tells who the owner of the car is.
In
conclusion, Gatsby tried to prove the struggle to prove he belonged to the
upper class. And through this stature, he could win Daisy. This notion of
American Dream ‘every poor man can become rich or anything he wants, has been
rejected in the novel because though he struggled to get his position from a
teenage, making his life mechanically scheduled, yet he had to resort to crime
in order to achieve his rich stature. And in the pursuit of it all, he was
murdered by George.
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