The distinction between old money and new money is one of the first things students learn about The Great Gatsby, often before they have even finished reading it, since the concept gets introduced in nearly every study guide and classroom summary of the novel. That familiarity is exactly what makes class essays hard to write well: the basic observation is so widely known that students often stop there, treating it as a conclusion rather than a starting point for further analysis.

A stronger essay treats old money versus new money as a framework to complicate, not a conclusion to state. East Egg and West Egg are not simply rich and richer; the novel draws a moral and aesthetic distinction between inherited legitimacy and self-made wealth, and the strongest essays interrogate whether that distinction actually holds up under scrutiny by the novel's end.

George Wilson's position adds a third layer entirely, representing a class the novel treats with far less narrative sympathy than either East or West Egg, and essays that ignore this third position miss a significant part of Fitzgerald's class commentary.

Pushing students to consider all three positions, old money, new money, and the working class represented by Wilson, tends to produce essays with considerably more nuance than those focused solely on the Buchanan-Gatsby contrast.

Prompts That Go Beyond the Basic Binary

"Does the novel ultimately treat new money as morally inferior to old money, or does it critique both equally?" pushes students past the assumption that Fitzgerald simply favors one side, since a careful reading suggests the novel is skeptical of both forms of wealth in different ways.

• Evaluate whether the novel treats new money as morally inferior to old money or critiques both equally
• Examine how George Wilson's class position is treated differently from either East or West Egg
• Consider what Gatsby's specific method of acquiring wealth reveals about the limits of self-invention
• Analyze how Tom's inherited wealth shapes his sense of entitlement toward other characters
• Argue whether the novel offers any vision of class mobility that does not end in tragedy

Grading for Complexity Beyond the Familiar Frame

A rubric for this topic should explicitly reward essays that complicate the basic old money versus new money framework, rather than simply restating it accurately. An essay that correctly identifies the distinction but never questions or extends it has demonstrated comprehension, not the deeper analysis the assignment is meant to test.

This is a case where accuracy alone should not earn a top score, since the widely known framework is accurate but insufficient on its own for advanced literary analysis.

Feedback That Pushes Past the Obvious

When an essay stops at the basic class distinction without extending it, useful feedback names a specific direction for extension: "you have shown me the difference between East and West Egg, now what does George Wilson's position suggest that neither of those two fully capture?" This kind of prompt gives students a concrete third element to bring into their analysis.

Students who revise with this specific direction tend to produce essays with noticeably more original class analysis than those given only general encouragement to "go deeper."

Connecting to Contemporary Relevance

Some teachers find it useful, near the end of this unit, to ask students to briefly consider whether the class distinctions the novel draws still resonate today, which tends to deepen engagement without turning the assignment into a purely contemporary essay. This connection works best as a brief closing reflection rather than the central focus of the assignment, keeping the primary analytical work anchored in the text itself.

That brief bridge to the present tends to be one of the more memorable parts of the unit for students, even though it occupies only a small portion of the overall assignment.