The Great Gatsby
Prompt #26 · The Great Gatsby
Prompt Type: Theme + Device
Fitzgerald employs juxtaposition to contrast scenes of extravagant wealth with images of poverty and decay. Analyze how this technique reinforces the novel's critique of class inequality and moral corruption. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom.”
Chapter 2
Argument
This quote employs visual juxtaposition through imagery, contrasting the 'white ashen dust' that 'veiled everything' (representing poverty and decay in the Valley of Ashes) with Myrtle's proximity to Tom (representing her aspirational connection to wealth), reinforcing how class boundaries physically manifest and how the wealthy remain untouched by the decay surrounding the poor.
Quote 2
"He's a bootlegger," said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. "One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass."
Chapter 4
Argument
Fitzgerald uses spatial juxtaposition by placing the phrase 'between his cocktails and his flowers' to contrast Gatsby's extravagant wealth (luxury items) with rumors of his criminal corruption ('bootlegger,' 'killed a man'), demonstrating through this literary device how moral decay is inseparable from—and indeed finances—the novel's displays of opulence.
Quote 3
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made …”
Chapter 9
Argument
The metaphor 'smashed up things and creatures' juxtaposes the wealthy elite's destructive carelessness against the vulnerable people they harm, while 'retreated back into their money' contrasts the protection wealth provides the Buchanans with the consequences faced by those without such insulation, crystallizing the novel's critique of how class inequality enables moral corruption to go unpunished.
Quote 4
“He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about … like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”
Chapter 8
Argument
This quote juxtaposes Gatsby's idealized vision ('breathing dreams like air') with the harsh reality of decay ('ashen, fantastic figure'), using grotesque imagery ('raw sunlight,' 'scarcely created grass') to underscore how the American Dream's material excess ultimately leads to spiritual emptiness and moral corruption.
Quote 5
“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 'like moths among the whisperings' contrasts Gatsby's lavish parties (extravagant wealth) with the fleeting, destructive nature of his guests' attraction (moral decay), reinforcing how Fitzgerald uses spatial juxtaposition to critique the hollowness of class aspiration.