F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby can be seen as a kind of pre-Great Depression. Its tale of a socially uptight Midwest, illicit money-making activities, lavish parties and economic class distinctions makes the novel seem like a critical study of the wealth and excess that largely defined the 1920s before the infamous stock market crash. For the most part, Fitzgerald’s novel is taught to high school students in conjunction with or as a prelude to the 1920s and eventual Great Depression, the greatest economic disaster in the United States and a potential macroeconomic topic in the AP.

To some extent, the Jay Gatsby character can be seen as a predictable symbol of the transcendence of pre-Depression times. However, by the time we meet the title character Gatsby—Gatz the smuggler who’s building an illegal smuggling empire in an effort to win back his true love, who’s high-class but married Daisy—he’s already been dead for a while. Narrator Nick Carraway’s goal in telling this story is largely to admonish high society for its cold cruelty and reflect on the downsides of the fabled American Dream—all by dissecting the final weeks leading up to Gatsby’s death. Gatsby, with his unbridled wealth and attempt at social ascent, becomes our tragic hero of the twenties’ boom and ultimate bust.

We can see this idea in Fitzgerald’s critical construction of The Great Gatsby setting. Set in the affluent “West Egg” and “East Egg”—respectively, that’s Long Island and New York City for you—we emerge as readers in a social milieu that is affluent, educated, socially exclusive, and restricted. The characters do not dare to associate with others who are considered socially below them, particularly in geographical locations. In fact, social status is everything and this status is usually related to one’s financial worth. But even then, one’s social status – like that of Gatsby – is not held in high esteem if it comes to money and lavish parties. Despite his big money, Gatsby lives in the lesser-known West Egg, which means he hasn’t fully risen to the level of his love for Daisy, a distance represented both symbolically and geographically in the water stretching between their homes. The novel is obsessed with such stark class distinctions and the inability of most people in the novel to reach a level of equality with the upper class, that it makes 1920s America look almost like feudal Europe. No matter how many colorful shirts, champagne-fuelled parties or fancy cars kill people, he can never be quite the same as Daisy in her eyes, even with his excess. His death is also largely symbolic. The wealthy Gatsby ends up being murdered by a blue-collar mechanic while he is kicking back in his swimming pool. This event, which has been interpreted after the Depression, indicates the equalization of classes.

In fact, the status quo represented in this novel effectively ended with the onslaught of the Great Depression. Of course, reading The Great Gatsby today in hindsight and knowing that four years after its publication the world’s economies will collapse from within certainly colors readers’ interpretations. However, if Fitzgerald had been an economist, the Great Depression might never have happened. He seemed to know what kind of ruin Gatsby’s extravagance was destined for. So, becoming The Great Gatsby, this ill-fated book with unblemished insight not only criticizes class society before the Depression, but in its own way, also argues for the kind of equality or equal standing that the Depression eventually brings, however devastating it may be.