This paper applies Marxist literary criticism to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), arguing that the novel affirms rather than subverts the prevailing ideology of the capitalist class system. Drawing on key Marxist concepts — including material production, false consciousness, alienation, ideological superstructure, and sign-exchange value — the analysis examines how Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of wealth and social status reflects his internalization of ruling-class ideology, how his relationships with Nick, Tom, and Daisy are structured by commodity logic, and how women in the novel function as sites of contested power between men. The paper concludes that the fates of Gatsby, Myrtle, and Nick ultimately reinforce the untouchable authority of the inherited aristocratic class.
Works of literature can be read through a Marxist lens because they say something about the real conditions and prevailing attitudes of the time — the conditions that were determinative for social interactions, which Marx referred to in his key statement: "The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness" (Marx, preface). From this material base of production rise the social distinctions of classes and all their ideologies and forms of consciousness. A text represents the values that culturally produced it and can therefore be explored for the social relations it describes, which are grounded in the material realities of production depicted within it. F. Scott Fitzgerald's realistic novel The Great Gatsby (1925) is thus a strong choice for this kind of analysis.
The important underlying assumptions of Marxist criticism rise from Marx's statement. For one thing, Marxist criticism focuses on the economic systems that influence human experience and interaction. It grounds itself in an analysis of the material (socioeconomic) forces that shape the behavior of characters, as well as in the hidden ideological superstructure that reinforces those material conditions. Another assumption is that economic power is the motive for all social activity — that a person designs their relationships and behaviors so as to possess, maintain, or increase their own power. This striving for power produces the historical situation or ideological atmosphere that aims at perpetuating those material conditions. A Marxist analysis therefore looks at the power dynamics that inhere in socioeconomic class structures and posits clear class distinctions based on work and wealth.
In addition, many ideologies — such as rugged individualism, the American Dream, and religion — are consumed, according to Marxism, in ways that serve the interests of the ruling (aristocratic) class. Ideology functions as a deceptive means of social control through which the relations of material production (wealth) are conceived. These relations are hidden, absorbed unconsciously, and presented falsely as innate. Their effect is false consciousness and alienation.
When Marxism approaches a text, it attends to these relations of power, class, and ideology as they manifest in the characters. As Tyson writes, "Marxism works to make us constantly aware of all the ways in which we are products of material/historical circumstances and of the repressive ideologies that serve to blind us to this fact in order to keep us subservient to the ruling power system" (Tyson 57). It examines how unnatural relationships between human beings are portrayed as static and naturalized. The goal of Marxist criticism is to uncover the ideologies and social relations in the text and to analyze how they undergird or support the material modes of production and power structures. This includes analyzing consumerism. According to Tyson, "From a Marxist perspective, because the survival of capitalism, which is a market economy, depends on consumerism, it promotes sign-exchange value as our primary mode of relating to the world around us" (Tyson 62). That is, instead of use or exchange value, capitalism stresses symbolic value that is not material and not inherent in the object itself — it exists only as social status, or symbolic capital. This social capital is used to promote the values and interests of the propertied classes and to maintain social class distinction.
This paper argues that far from subverting the prevailing ideology of the class system and its productive relations, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby affirms it. This is evident in the fate of the upstart Gatsby, who despite his best efforts to enter the aristocratic world finds himself unable to achieve his aims. His relationships with other characters are shallow, manipulative, and ultimately devastating. Meanwhile, Tom and Daisy emerge from the conflict unscathed, demonstrating how their class power retains its authoritative and untouchable status. This paper also makes the case that women in the text are little more than sites of contested power between men. In Myrtle's case, she dreams of the rich life but is exploited and destroyed because she is poor and powerless. In Daisy's case, men fight over her through references to economic and social power. The men engage in a system of status and social power at women's expense. There is little in this novel that is socially redeemable from a Marxist perspective.
The status of Jay Gatsby revolves around his desire to attain love with Daisy, which he attempts by adopting the ideology of wealth. When he returns from war, Daisy has abandoned him and married the wealthy Tom, who has inherited his vast fortune. This disappointment, defined by Gatsby's lower-class poverty, creates the drive behind his every move. Obsessed with reclaiming his lost love, Gatsby devises a plan that involves the material production of wealth and the complete assimilation of the ideology that affluence can buy love. While his underlying motive is love, he uses material means to enable this reclamation.
Significantly, since he is from the lower class, he must manufacture wealth through unsavory means. Gatsby's wealth is built on illegal activities spawned by 1920s Prohibition. This requires secrecy — no one is quite sure where his money comes from. Mystery is the pervasive aura surrounding him. At his elaborate parties, designed only to flaunt wealth, he is virtually unseen, just a shadowy figure with a murky past. Nick sees him "standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes" (50, Chapter 3). Rumors swirl about his having killed someone or being a spy. Nick thinks, "It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him" (44, Chapter 3). The material production behind his lavish and conspicuous displays comes at the price of remaining alone, isolated, and unknown. That is Gatsby's consciousness. In other words, Gatsby is alienated from himself and from others because of the ideology he has assumed. He is almost impersonal and incapable of real relation. This detachment is imposed on him by capitalistic conditions in which making an honest living could not enable him to achieve the wealth he needs to entice Daisy back.
Gatsby's self-alienation and orientation toward symbolic capital derived from material wealth is clear in his pursuit of Daisy. Gatsby believes that "Her voice is full of money" (120, Chapter 7). Because Daisy wants wealth, she becomes the source of his illusion. He cannot relate to her outside of the demonstration of his economic image. When he reintroduces himself to Daisy, his whole goal is to tantalize her with his material success. He tours her through his mansion, which he keeps "always full of interesting people, night and day" (90, Chapter 5). His relation to her is commodified, placed at the level of the symbolic display of wealth. It reaches an absurd climax when she collapses on his imported English shirts, sobbing, "It makes me sad because I've never seen such — such beautiful shirts before" (92, Chapter 5). The scene demonstrates Gatsby's internalization of an ideological illusion: he believes that material wealth equals persuasive power, a belief that Daisy herself perpetuates. Gatsby's entire image flows from his desire to attain social status.
"Nick as commodified tool and middle-class ideologue"
"Tom's racism and aristocratic class dominance"
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