The Last Dance

America is the land of social class and division. The books, discussions and short stories we’ve had this year have brought about two key topics: social class, and the division amongst these social classes. “I am still afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and as I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth,” says Nick in The Great Gatsby. Nick is saying that people aren’t just born into wealth or poverty, they are born into more morally correct homes. He also says that these are unequal at birth meaning that not everyone is given a fair opportunity which is true and has been true for a very long time. Later in the book Nick says to Gatsby, “They’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” By using the word worth it makes it seem like Nick is saying the Gatsby has more value than the crowd that Nick is talking about. This is the separation between the social classes, just because Gatsby has more money does not mean that he should be, “worth,” more. These themes of social class and separation have been found in many different books and short stories that we’ve read this year. One of the main divisions between social classes is connected to race. Historically, different races have achieved very different levels of success regarding not only money but also quality of life. In the book, The Color of Water, one of the main characters named James says, “White folks, she [his mom] felt, were implicitly evil toward blacks, yet she forced us to go to white schools to get the best education.” Even though during this time white people were “implicitly evil” which means they are evil with intention, the black people feel the need to go to the white school in order to hopefully achieve the same education that the white people have been granted. This theme of social separation is caused by many different things but after reviewing the books we’ve read and the discussions we’ve had I’ve found that racism is one of the leading factors. The books we’ve read have provided some very interesting things to think about regarding social class and separation, but I think the discussions we’ve had as a class have provided the best insight into this. The most interesting thing I thought was when we were having a discussion and we were talking about, “nice neighborhoods.” We spent a lot of time talking about what makes a neighborhood nice and as a class we agreed that there is a big difference between a nice neighborhood and a wealthy neighborhood. This is one of the most important discussions we had when talking about the separation of social class because it goes into how social class division is on so many different levels, race, wealth and overall quality of life.