The Great Gatsby
Prompt #20 · The Great Gatsby
Prompt Type: Symbol/Motif
The contrast between East Egg and West Egg represents more than geographical difference. Analyze how Fitzgerald uses this symbol to explore class distinctions and the limits of social mobility. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.”
Chapter 1
Argument
This quote establishes the symbolic contrast between East Egg and West Egg early in the novel, framing their differences as more than superficial geography by hinting at deeper class tensions ('bizarre and not a little sinister contrast').
Quote 2
“She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a shortcut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.”
Chapter 6
Argument
Daisy's perspective here represents East Egg's disdain for West Egg's nouveau riche energy, symbolizing the entrenched class barriers ('raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms') that mock Gatsby's aspirational mobility.
Quote 3
“Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.”
Chapter 1
Argument
The metaphor of the 'enormous eggs' as 'identical in contour' underscores the illusion of equality between East and West Egg, while the 'courtesy bay' symbolizes the unbridgeable social divide beneath their geographic proximity.
Quote 4
“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”
Chapter 3
Argument
The simile 'men and girls came and went like moths' in Gatsby's blue gardens symbolizes West Egg's transient, artificial glamour—a stark contrast to East Egg's entrenched aristocracy, reinforcing the theme of futile social mobility.