We Are Not Yet Evolved: On Gatsby and the Persistence of Class Structures

3 July 2026

We’re Not Yet Evolved: On Gatsby and the Persistence of Class Structures

Classics don’t need to be a slog; after Middlemarch, I was seeking a rapid read and was startled while perusing my shelves to find The Great Gatsby such an unimposing little pocket paperback at just 187 pages. It dawned on me in that moment that I’d heard the title and watched the Leonardo DiCaprio movie so often that I had mistakenly assumed I’d read the book—which, based on the book’s un-annotated pages, I clearly had not.

Unimposing as the Penguin Popular Classic might be, it does pack a punch. The Great Gatsby is a twisted tragic love story that takes place on Long Island in 1925. That’s all the summary you need, honestly. It’s an engaging premise in an engaging setting with singular characters. The most noteworthy aspects of the novel are its floral language and use of metaphor, employment of point of view, and inspection of class structures still prevalent today.

On Fitzgerald’s Language and Metaphors

Not a month ago, I stumbled across a Substack note proposing Zelda Fitzgerald penned The Great Gatsby, then published under her husband’s name. Just 20-some years after the end of the Victorian Era, of course this claim might be believed; my master’s thesis centered upon the difficulty Christina Rossetti might have faced getting published during that era. Although I’ve not read any of Zelda’s writing and so cannot have any real opinion on this matter, I can’t help but be struck by the protagonist’s nuanced, layered, complex depictions of women throughout, which suggests that even if the story was not written by Zelda, likely her husband received some inputs and/or feedback from her, which he then incorporated into the story. Indeed, we know this must be true because one of the most memorable lines is overtly attributed to Zelda after the birth of her own daughter: ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’ (24).

And, indeed, the language throughout the book is often florid, which these days many would resist attributing to a man. To be clear, I do not feel this is evidence that Zelda wrote the book; more so, it is evidence that since 1925 men have stepped away from embracing beauty and emotion in an effort to be more a more socially-acceptable sort of “masculine.” Ick.

What’s wild to me is that a few of the metaphors I encountered in The Great Gatsby are so oblique they reflect the claim that AI writing is bad because it contains many complex, slightly confusing, and often nonsensical metaphors. That AI writing presents such metaphors was one of the grounds upon which readers accused Jamir Nazir, this year’s Commonwealth Prizewinner, of composing his prize-winning short story using AI. Here are two such metaphors from The Great Gatsby:

“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (45).

“The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life” (27).

Yet for both the metaphors match the moment thematically and draw upon that moment’s emotional tenor. And upon closer inspection, they are not nonsensical at all. As all moths are drawn to a flame, so these moths are drawn to flames: whisperings, champagne, and stars. As an organ requires the movement of air to make sound, the earth after a hot day exhales, and its sound is the marshy croak of frogs. Obviously, my point here is not that Fitzgerald used AI; rather, it is that AI learned to frame its silly metaphors based off literature such as Fitzgerald’s—and its imitation is fraught because a machine, without having experienced moths being drawn to a flame or the exhale of frog song, cannot effectively draw metaphors based on lived truths such as these, which are beautifully human (whether that human be Zelda or her husband).

On Fitzgerald’s PoV

Before I move on to discuss theme, there’s another craft feature of this story that’s worth noting: Fitzgerald’s narrator and use of PoV.

First, it’s insightful to me that for his narrator, Fitzgerald chose Nick, a guy who by birth is clearly connected with Daisy and Old Money—but he leaves his family (and whatever money they might have) in the Midwest to make a living for himself in NYC selling bonds. This places Nick as something—someone—outside of both Old Money and New Money, looking in, which perhaps gives him some perspective on the entire story. Even if he is snarky and judgmental.

What is most interesting to me is Fitzgerald’s brief shift into Jordan Baker’s PoV via extended dialogue (80). Without this long-winded monologue from Jordan, the reader would not learn so much of Daisy’s background, especially the news that Daisy was at one point entirely infatuated with Tom. Fitzgerald accomplishes this new PoV well via monologue; the shift was an enjoyable brief respite, after being stuck in Nick’s head for so long.

Old Money, New Money, and The Working Class

Of course, we all know this story is about class. Far be it from me to toss yet another thematic analysis of The Great Gatsby into the world. Surely that horse has been beaten to death.

The only quote on class from The Great Gatsby worth repeating here is this one:

“Americans, while willing, even eager, to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry” (95).

Nick perceived that Americans would prefer to be hardworking and poor but attached to money than to be hardworking, poor, and free from attachment (and its associated constraints). This would explain all the people who, like moths, were drawn to Gatsby’s parties uninvited…and it may still be true? Without naming any names, it’s clear to me that much of our nation’s current “leadership” are such people, grasping at and riding on the coattails of wealth and power.

The inspection of class structures in Gatsby struck me, however, in its relevance to the city in which we have recently settled: Charlotte, NC. First, let me say that I am not at all certain into which class my family falls. My children were literally called “peasants” by the kids in our neighborhood back when we lived in Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain, because we did not employ a scrubs-wearing chica de la casa. My husband does not come from money—nor do I. Our parents were all hard-workers, and to oversimplify a bit, most of their income came from career service in the military. My husband was career Air Force himself, and he now has a post-military career that pays well. We are comfortable but certainly not New Rich, and we certainly are not connected to anyone I’d deem New Rich or Old Rich in any way. I don’t know what we are, and maybe that’s OK.

Maybe we’re something closer to Nick than to anyone else in this story, and maybe that provides a bit of distance from which to observe.

When house hunting near Charlotte, we sought a lake house with at least an acre of land within our (reasonable-to-us) budget. In the process of hunting for houses here, it became clear to me that of the three potential lakes we might soon call home, one was New Money (Norman), one was Old Money (Hickory), and one was—working class (High Rock)? Rural? Farmland? So if you’re wondering whether these striations in class still exist, at least in the way of lakes outside Charlotte, NC, they seem to.

First, on Norman there is no such thing as an acre of land for purchase—at least not within any reasonable price point. Lots with land cannot be found south of $2M, which means most houses in our price range were built practically on top of one another. Two weeks ago, Brian’s employer hosted a dinner cruise on Lake Norman. We were asked to park at a nearby shopping center to be bussed to the marina. The shopping center itself was posh and new. Developed around a street with lanes divided by lush, flowering gardens, the center is populated by brewpubs, health spas, niche gyms, and designer clothing stores. Once our cruise boat had passed through a gargantuan marina full of small yachts, we passed tiered mansion after mansion on our way out to the main body of the lake. At one point, a private helicopter landed nearby on a pier helipad. Probably a famous athlete or the Bank of America CEO. We did not purchase a home or land on Lake Norman, not only because we couldn’t afford it but also because it felt overpopulated. Everyone wants to be on Lake Norman for some reason; whether that be proximity to Charlotte or status or both, who knows?

Lake Hickory is a bit further, norther, wester from Charlotte, on the route toward Asheville—the state’s cultural and artistic hub—and it shows. We stayed at an Airbnb on Hickory to get a feel for the place and found it surrounded by expensive restaurants, art galleries, and stylish coffee shops. The clientele of the restaurants reminded me of the types we’d seen attending orchestras in other cities: over-fifty, well-dressed, driving black Mercedez and BMW sedans. The wealth of this lake wasn’t flashy; it was self-assured, composed. Houses within our price point at Hickory tended to be built in the 1960s by people who’d purchased land on the lake before lake property an hour from Charlotte became so desirable. At one point, I flew all the way out to Charlotte from Albuquerque to look at one house that might have worked for our needs. Except, the home was $1M, built in the 1960s, had eight-foot ceilings on the main floor and only a half-fridge, and walked out to the lake to a view of the back of someone else’s white, block-shaped mansion on a jetty across the way. It turns out that if we had a budget of $6M, we could live quite comfortably on Hickory surrounded by a few acres of undeveloped land. Sadly, that it outside of our not-new-or-old-rich budget.

Ultimately, however, we settled on High Rock Lake, which is closer to Charlotte than Hickory yet further than Norman, because it is where we could afford a newer home with some land (over three acres). Much of this lake is surrounded by farmland: cows, corn, very vocal donkeys, and a gazillion churches. Some areas around the lake closer to Lexington are densely populated and have houses in shotgun rows, like on Abbott’s Creek; however, some areas of the lake are privately owned, undeveloped swaths of land. There are no posh brewpubs here, although the Floating Goat just opened 20 minutes away in Lexington. There are no newly developed shopping centers, but at every mile or so you’ll encounter a little road stand with eggs or fresh-baked bread. There is a public (free!) beach and boat launch just a mile down from us which is full of families all summer on weekends and holidays: picnic blankets, parasols, inner tubes, goggles. Babies, children, lovers, grandparents. The patrons at the beach nearby are diverse. People often drive their side-by-sides into town. Eagles nest in the trees of undeveloped land across from our home. Last week, for the first time in my life, I attended a demolition derby and enjoyed it more than the most recent symphony I attended in Santa Fe. We appreciate this lake’s lack of pretense and expectation.

Apparently, my (our) values don’t align with those of most Americans, according to Nick, in that we’d prefer the freedom of peasantry over serfdom. And although today’s class divisions may not be so flashy and explicit as those depicted in The Great Gatsby, based on my assessment of class structures still prevalent in this area, I’m not at all convinced we’re more socially evolved today than we were a century ago. Or…or…peoples’ choices to live at each of these lakes may be more informed by geographical proximity to Charlotte and Asheville—and my assessment is entirely bunk. I’ll let you know after we’ve lived here another few years.

Cheers!

~Meg