Elites in "The Great Gatsby" and "American Psycho". A Comparison of the Illustration of Elites (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2.0, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: This paper aims at comparing the illustration of elites in two different temporal episodes. The novels, which will be the basis for this comparison, are F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Bret Easton Ellis¿ American Psycho. The explanation of the literary choices will be delivered in the next section. Both, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Bret Easton Ellis, have created characters larger than life which partly represent the perversion of the upper classes but both also provide literally, symbolically and figuratively different approaches to escape the problems they are facing.

May it be Jay Gatsby or Patrick Bateman; they both feel uncomfortable in their respective environments and strive for something their current life cannot provide. Those desires reflect the bygone and contemporary decoupling of the upper classes lives and thereby comment on society as a whole in their respective temporal context.

After explaining what makes those novels predestinated for a comparison, New York as a social and cultural concept and its history will be depicted. Considering that both novels take place in New York and the geographical space clearly has an impact on the progression of the plot but also the mindset of the protagonists, New York needs to be understood first, to then derive sense from the novels taking place there. Afterwards, the term elites will be defined and set into context.

After having created a working definition of the term elites, the work on the two novels will start with a temporal contextualization of the novel and the authors' lives. After doing so, the actual illustration of the elites will be analyzed. In a second step, the two novels and their depiction of the upper classes will be compared and contrasted. After identifying both, differences but also uniting factors, the conclusion will pick up the hypothesis from the beginning and on the basis of that, new questions for further research will be raised.

Media and artists had and still have enhanced interest in the life and doings of elites. The reasons for that might be diverse and range from pure voyeurism to complex social criticism. Nonetheless, elites occupy artists' minds ever since and the list of authors who incorporated elites into their plays, stories or novels is long and prestigious. Even until today, the concept of elites has an undeniable impact on both, society and art.