There is a reason The Great Gatsby focuses on social classes and money. Fitzgerald himself grew up poor. He didn’t see himself as rich. He didn’t feel like he ever fit into the high society of wealth and money. He built himself from the bottom up. Knowing this, Gatsby’s character makes a lot more sense. Fitzgerald was able to write him because he experienced a similar character arc in his own life. Having come from a poor background and then earning his own money, Fitzgerald also has a unique perspective about the class system. He came from a poor background, so he is able to provide the outsider’s perspective to the upper class. Unlike Gatsby though, he gained fame entirely from his own merits as a writer. This fame allowed him to enter the social circles of “the elite.” Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby as a way to critique the upper class. In the book, he portrays the characters that are from a higher class as ridiculous and single-mindedly materialistic. Daisy for example thinks she is above everyone else because of her status in society. Fitzgerald critiques Gatsby as well for thinking that he could ever reach the upper-class status without being born into it. I think that Fitzgerald did exaggerate the characters a little bit to really drive home the point he was trying make, but I also think that the character flaws he reveals were and are true of the higher classes and the social class system. Fitzgerald’s first-hand experience allows The Great Gatsby to be a classic.