by Xi Lin

Created on: May 26, 2008

Class Transformation: The Quest of Humanity

Changing one's class is like beginning to read and conceptualize one's life. Through much soul-searching, personal dedication and a bit of luck, one can change class for the better. This adjustment has always involved more than the coins in one's pocket; it requires a modification of intangible qualities, such as personality and societal perception. As Max Weber noted, the criteria for the high class involves not only wealth, but power and prestige as well. Power is the ability to control others or the surroundings around them and prestige serves as the public respect and attention given to the individual. Such recognition renders class an external concept, since only the public at large can distinguish what is truly aristocratic and wealthy from mediocrity and destitution.

Marjorie Garber in The Trophy House stated, "The Great Gatsby[with] real and fakeand unerringly apt descriptions of, vernacular architecture as the sign and symbol of cultural desire" (2) serves as the great American Dream. While some notions of class are merely fake and illusory, the primary criterion of class ascendancy can be met through a devoted of personal commitment to change. To acquire this ideal, Gatsby displays this dedication through "his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man". As soon as the desire is instilled within the person's mind, the individual impetus to take measures to imitate an aristocratic persona or to physically toil for wealthy materialisms is necessary to advance in social class. While the notion of class is external, i.e. social recognition, this change still takes much effort on behalf of the individual. As Ben Franklin asserted, "I determined to give a Week's strict Attention to each of the Virtues successively" (1). A prime example of a destitute who achieved aristocracy and renown fame, Ben Franklin analyzed the philosophical aspects of the ideal and began his complex transformation.

Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead illustrates, "[Gail Wynand] remained in the building, sitting on the stairs outside the city room. He sat there everyday for a week" (405) and when someone finally gave him a chore to do, "he obeyed with military precision. In ten days, he was on salary. In six months he was a reporter. In two years he was an associate director" (405). This book, publicly adored as an all-time classic, merely demonstrates

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