A ruthless oligarchy seized control of American society.
Day 3 · 목표 ⭐
London imagined a near-future America where a small group of industrialists, threatened by organized labor's growing strength, used their enormous economic resources to crush democratic institutions and establish absolute rule.
2Reading· 오늘의 본문
We · Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
In the shadow of Gatsby's glittering parties, the real struggle was invisible. The workers in the valley of ashes, where the industrial smoke never cleared, were divided. Some clung to the faint hope offered by men like Wilson, while others, broken by the relentless grind, saw no escape from the factories owned by men like Tom Buchanan. Their attempts to organize were fragmented, whispers lost in the roar of production. This internal division was their greatest weakness. The wealthy elite, watching from their East Egg mansions, faced no unified resistance. The workers' fragmented anger, like the ash that coated their homes, settled into a grim acceptance, leaving the power of the oligarchy unchallenged and absolute.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
Fitzgerald's novel, while ostensibly a romance, offers a trenchant critique of the nascent oligarchy's consolidation of power, a process predicated on the systematic disempowerment of the laboring class. The valley of ashes serves as the geographical and symbolic heart of this dynamic, where the workers' potential for collective action is neutered by internal fissures and existential despair. George Wilson's ineffectual rage and Myrtle's desperate aspiration to climb the social ladder exemplify a fractured resistance, where individuals are pitted against a monolithic economic structure. The industrialists, represented by Tom Buchanan's casual brutality and inherited wealth, need not actively crush a unified front because none exists. The workers' power is dissipated through isolation and false consciousness, ensuring their compliance within a system where concentrated capital has already rendered democratic checks obsolete, securing the oligarchy's control not through overt force, but through the suffocating inertia of a divided populace. What makes The Great Gatsby (심화) endure as a work of literature is precisely this refusal to offer easy consolation — it demands that readers sit with the discomfort of a world that does not resolve neatly, and find their own position within it.
C1 · 170 wordsavg 34.0 w/s
3Vocabulary· 핵심 어휘 & 연습
industrialists
산업가, 자본가
The old-money industrialists of East Egg viewed the new wealth of West Egg with contempt.
enormous
거대한, 엄청난
Gatsby used his enormous wealth to create a facade meant to win back Daisy.
crush
분쇄하다, 진압하다
Tom Buchanan's attitude seemed designed to crush the spirits of those he considered beneath him.
democratic
민주주의의
The novel questions if the American Dream is truly democratic or just a myth for the powerful.
absolute
절대적인, 완전한
The Buchanans moved through their world with an absolute sense of entitlement and impunity.
Activity 1 · 빈칸 채우기5 questions
1. Every hour of D-503's life was carefully ____ by the Table of Hours.
2. The ____ of privacy did not exist in the One State.
3. Individual names were ____ and replaced with numbers.
4. The glass walls guaranteed there was no ____ for citizens.
5. The State was ____ declared to represent perfect happiness.