Power Dynamics and Social Stratification in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: A Speech Act Perspective
Abstract
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has undergone exhaustive scholarly evaluation regarding its thematic deconstruction of the American Dream, the precise micro-linguistic mechanisms that drive its rigid class hierarchies remain significantly under-explored. This study investigates the ways in which speech acts serve as functional instruments of power negotiation and socioeconomic demarcation among literary characters from three distinct class positions: 'Old Money' (Tom and Daisy Buchanan), 'New Money' (Jay Gatsby), and the working class (George and Myrtle Wilson). Strategically grounded in J.L. Austin’s (1962) conceptualization of performative language and John Searle’s (1979) taxonomy of illocutionary forces, this qualitative inquiry adopts an archive-based close reading methodology. The dataset, comprising 25 purposefully selected conversational exchanges from the novel, was systematically condensed and organized around the interactive qualitative paradigm advanced by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2020).The analytical outcomes expose a profound pragmatic imbalance across the socioeconomic spectrum. The entrenched upper-class elite consistently deploys unmitigated directives and assertive formulations to enforce structural hegemony and enact symbolic violence over subordinate individuals. Conversely, the newly wealthy protagonist faces chronic communicative friction; despite his massive material capital, Gatsby's verbal expressions continuously fail to satisfy crucial felicity conditions due to his lack of established historical and cultural legitimacy. Concurrently, the lower-class figures experience severe interactive marginalization, wherein their desperate efforts to replicate commanding speech designs are swiftly terminated by the dominant group through immediate verbal or physical interventions. This study concludes that dialogic authority within the narrative serves as a direct manifestation of the unequal distribution of financial assets during the Jazz Age, proving that Speech Act theory provides a remarkably rigorous framework for revealing hidden systems of class oppression within classic literary texts.
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