Fitzgerald's well crafted story poses and interesting, "what if," question to the readers.  How far will people go to gain wealth?  The impact of this question my not be as interesting now, but back in the day I'm sure it was a shocking idea to have.  It was the beginning of the industrial age and everybody was making money hand over fist.  But this does not dissuade Fitzgerald to still ask this question in a clever way.  People actively keeping others in the dark about the real world and keeping them slaves?  Novel for the time I'm sure.  Specifically though, its the picture that it paints of wealthy people that strikes me as well, striking.  The lengths that they go through to keep their money and their power perpetual seems to stop at nothing, even to go as far as to kill people and blow up the biggest diamond ever, instead of sharing a beautiful item with the world, or having their profits suffer.  While some characters escape, showing how far their allegiance goes with money, other decide to go down with the ship.  What does everybody else think?  Could you picture this being a shocking story of the time?