A DISCOURSE ON VARIEGATED ASPECTS OF ‘TASTE’: AN ANALYSIS OF ‘CLASS DISTINCTIONS’ IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY

After exploring the variegated aspects of „taste‟ such as aesthetic, visual, aural, sartorial, olfactory, gastronomical, classical and modern, drawing peripherally from Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Joseph Addison, I wish to examine critically the famous 20th century American F. Scott Fitzgerald‟s classic The Great Gatsbyin the context of „class distinctions,‟ specifically the characters of the aristocrat Tom Buchanan and the nouveau riche Gatsby, their attitudes that reflect their „taste,‟ their behavior, the automobiles they drive, the mansions they inhabit and their locale, the language they use. The novel “has become an international source for American social history and is read as a record of American life at an actual time and place.” F. Scott Fitzgerald ironically brings out with his „double vision‟ the characters of Tom Buchanan, the inherently wealthy, arrogant and smug aristocrat and the nouveau riche dreamer and idealist Jay Gatsby, the vague and mysterious tragic protagonist because of his „shady dealings‟ who materializes from the “Platonic Conception of himself”—the novelist‟s sympathetic projection of the Horatio myth from „rags to riches‟ idea—the all-embracing American Dream. Surely the novelist evidently delineates the characters with „taste‟ as the barometer.