F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

Our first introduction to distinctions between social class appears in the description of West Egg and East Egg. The New York scene, as contrasted to Nick Carraway’s mid-west background, is a setting of economic promise. The Eggs illustrate the subcategories of the wealthy, presenting the dichotomy of new money versus old money. The two land masses are “identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay” (5). Fitzgerald, in describing the land, creates a social commentary on the apparent similarity of the forms of wealth, but also asserts “their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size” (5).

West Egg, indicative of new money, is “the less fashionable of the two” (5). The village has mansions reminiscent of European castles, a “factual imitation” (5) of the countries from which the wealth derives. These houses are, however, merely “spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy” (5), quickly thrusting their way into society and replacing the inherited wealth. The productive labor of self-made men, allowed by the rise of the industrial revolution, is less prestigious than old money. Nick also notes the “consoling proximity of millionaires” (5), the feeling of solidarity of those with the same values, mannerisms, characteristics, and backgrounds. Within the “new money” strata, there is a sense of uniformity and mobility of class position.

East Egg shows a well-established facet of American life, “old money.” The “white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water” (5), flaunting their generational wealth and distinguishing themselves—both figuratively and by the Long Island Sound—from the “new money.” Tom and Daisy Buchanan’s house, a microcosm of the “old money” society at large, is defined as elaborate. The mansion, and arguably the lifestyle of the wealthy, is characterized by constant movement: “the lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quart of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walls and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run” (6). Inherited wealth has a deep and strong hold in American culture, the freedom of leisure and luxury of the most elite class position.

In contrasting West Egg and East Egg—and therefore, new money and old money—Fitzgerald narrates and predicts the shifting stratification of class in America. As the vines of “new money” grow raw, imitative, and less fashionable, those of “old money” are in constant motion at the top of the class hierarchy, and distinguishing themselves from those who must forge their way into a high class position through labor.