Open AccessForms of Capital in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”
Author(s) -
Raheleh Akhavi Zadegan,
Hossein Pirnajmuddin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
miscelánea/miscelánea
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2386-4834
pISSN - 1137-6368
DOI - 10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.20196286
Subject(s) - cultural capital , social reproduction , capital (architecture) , socialization , social capital , sociology , reading (process) , social mobility , individual capital , economic capital , aesthetics , social science , economics , political science , economic growth , history , law , human capital , art , archaeology
This paper offers a reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” (1922) in the light of Pierre Bourdieu’s theorization of forms of capital. Fitzgerald’s story is centrally concerned with social class and addresses the rise of consumer culture in the 1920s. It is about a Midwest American trying to improve his economic and social status to win the hand of a wealthy girl he loves. At issue here are different types of capital (economic, social, cultural, symbolic), hence the relevance of Bourdieu. Thus, we explore in Fitzgerald’s story the way characters are engaged in everyday practices as social agents competing with other social agents to accumulate ‘capital’. In the process of socialization, the economic capital provides the protagonist with luxury but the lack or shortage of other forms of capital —especially cultural capital— cause him to fail in the pursuit of his heart’s desire.