Compare to Fitzgerald's other notable works, namely This Side of Paradise and Tender Is The Night, for an understanding of Fitzgerald's developing style and approach towards the moneyed social elite of his era.
Edith Wharton's House of Mirth and Age of Innocence are examinations of the generation of New York's social elite that preceded the Buchanans'. House of Mirth in particular investigates the fate of a young woman's rise and fall within the strict hierarchy of high society.
Look at other works critiquing and deconstructing the American dream: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man demonstrates how the dream is available only to rich white men; Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman shows the fate...
