Class, Money, and Women in The Great Gatsby

In the decades leading up to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age, American social mores underwent momentous changes.  A new ruling class emerged, one whose status and power derived not from respectable ancestry, but from enormous wealth and its display.  Conspicuous consumption, the accumulation of goods to flaunt the fortunes of the purchasers, was born.  So was a new American dream, which promised that anyone, from any background, could achieve status and wealth, either through industry or marriage.  By Fitzgerald's time, this new American dream had produced Astors, Carnegies, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and a host of pampered, bejeweled wives and mistresses.  The new American dream, however, had a brutal dark side.  Fitzgerald explores that dark side in his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, in which he exposes the ugly truth beneath the gilded surface of society:  the desire for money and social status has the power to destroy personal authenticity, particularly the personal authenticity of women.