American Influence On The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, is the story of the idiosyncratic millionaire Jay Gatsby. It is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner from Long Island who later moves to Manhattan. Gatsby’s life is organized around one desire, Daisy, the woman he loved. This desire leads him on an expedition from poverty to wealth, reuniting with his old love, and his eventual death. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald is able to portray the American Dream where people seek out self-gratification and pleasure. He captures the romance of the roaring twenties with the cars, money, illegal alcohol and the wildest parties one could imagine. Much like the character, Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), wasn’t born into the upper class. While Gatsby is from the lower class, Fitzgerald from the middle class, both end up becoming exceptionally rich, fall into the wildest and reckless life, and use their fortunes to win the love and approval of the women they once loved.

Using Daisy and Gatsby as illustrations, he implies that the world of the Roaring Twenties was really corrupt, careless, and harmful and that the American Dream is unreachable and unrealistic. Fitzgerald, through Nick Carraway, depicts the wealthy as having a “quality of distortion…beyond [the] eyes’ power of correction” (176). Fitzgerald expends his full opinion of America’s elite through Nick’s disillusionment with Daisy and Tom Buchanan, calling them “careless people….[smashing] up things and creatures and then [retreating] back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together” (179). Basically, Fitzgerald accuses them of being destructive, selfish, and careless, assuming they have the right to be such things because of their wealth and social status. They’re just as destructive and corrupt as anyone else—if not more so—but they have the option to retreat and “let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald, 179) because of their financial and social status. With Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows the unreality of the American Dream. Gatsby “had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”—but “it was already behind him” (Fitzgerald, 180). Though Gatsby planned his future around his dream of Daisy, he died still living in the past. Fitzgerald asserts that the same outcome is destined for all who chase the American Dream. Although it seems so close that they can hardly fail to grasp it, the dream eludes them, receding year by year. They convince themselves that tomorrow they’ll “run faster, stretch out [their] arms father…and one fine morning” they’ll finally seize it—but they really never do (Fitzgerald, 180). Fitzgerald says it’s like “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

In the 1920’s, America went through a series of political, social, and economic changes. This was the decade known as the Roaring Twenties, where most Americans lived in cities and lived a consumer lifestyle, while the total wealth of the nation doubled. The name “Roaring Twenties” also held several other different meanings, including a reference to jazz and the rebellious nature of the younger generation. The Roaring Twenties not only was a decade of boom and determination for America, but it additionally represented the biggest shift from a traditional culture to a modern one.

We look back in history in order to learn from our mistakes and to help society progress in the present and in the future. “The Great Gatsby” was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. Fitzgerald wrote this piece during the 1920s after WWI and it perfectly replicates the time period. The narrative captures the essence of the Jazz Age by depicting characters, showing power struggles and by defining the societal conflicts of the time. The novel tells us about different influences on the 20’s such as the Prohibition Act, the success of Wall Street, and aspects of the American Dream. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald possesses the social constructs and ideas of the Roaring Twenties.

The exuberant, wild, freewheeling time of the roaring twenties was a period that will go down in the history books for the rest of time. But was the roaring twenties everything it was cracked up to be? The disregard for the status quo, twisting of social conventions, and the normalcy of law breaking was frowned upon by the “good” citizens, but considered revolutionary to almost everyone else. So why is it that F. Scott Fitzgerald, who took great part in the new social trends of the roaring twenties, would write about the time period with such resentment. The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the poor decision making and idiocy of the people from the twenties.

Fitzgerald expresses his social commentary in The Great Gatsby by revealing the true form of people. His charisma in the writing of The Great Gatsby gave him the ability to capture the mood of the nineteen twenties in a socially and politically vital and muddled time of American history. Through the characters in the book, he was not only able to capture an image of the upper and middle-class in the nineteen twenties, but he was also able to exemplify a series of contempt as well. Fitzgerald also made it a point in his book to show how people like Tom, Daisy and Jordan are at the “top of the totem pole” and how they liked to keep it that way. Fitzgerald also shows examples of people like Gatsby who work hard to get to the top, but are never accepted because they weren’t born into that social class.

“Great Gatsby” has become famous nowadays, thanks to Leonardo di Caprio. Why is that important? Because Scott Fitzgerald’s book was actually all about the Jazz, literally naming the period of time between the end of the World War I and the Great Depression – the Jazz age. People owe so much to this period, which gave people enough space to express themselves. A wise man once said: “Jazz is an open minded music designed for open minds”.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides a dark and pessimistic outlook into the American life style in 1922. Jay Gatsby, an American wealthy social identity, appears to have it all. But wealth, stature and an extravagant lifestyle seems not to be enough for Gatsby; he still yearns for his old idealistic love Daisy. In an ideal world this has the making of a great love story with a happy ending, but Fitzgerald chose to carry the story as a reflection of the American era the book is set in. An era consumed by appearances and excess and overall pursuit of the American dream.

Scott Fitzgerald’s typical wealthy 1920s lifestyle, The Great Gatsby and its context played a key role in this era of change. As stated in the previous paragraph, author John Bankston informed readers about Fitzgerald’s life and The Great Gatsby. This novel was about a fictitious character named Jay Gatsby, a self-made and wealthy man that came from poverty (former Jimmy Gatz). The book followed his attempts to try and win back a woman named Daisy that married another rich man (32). Fitzgerald had many inspirations that helped him come up with much of this novel’s plot, as explained in the article “F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

“The Great Gatsby” in Today's Society After many years, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote what we consider the great American novel. “The Great Gatsby” is still taught in classrooms almost a century later; but why? Taking place in the Roaring 20’s, society was much different than the lifestyles we are used to today. Extravagant parties, drugs, and riches keep the reader interested, but it is difficult for the majority of readers to relate to such a flamboyant lifestyle. This was a time period of change and excitement, while today we are very accustomed to our way of life.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the reader sees a common theme of corruption of the American Dream. In the 1920’s, the times are changing in America and morals are becoming looser and the lifestyle of the wealthy is more careless. New fashion, attitude, and music is what nicknamed this era the “Jazz Age,” greatly influencing Fitzgerald’s writing. He created similarities between many things in pop culture and the journey his characters Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle are taking to achieve the American dream. Through the use of the lively, yet scandalous, jazz music from the 1920’s, Fitzgerald reflects the attitudes of the characters in The Great Gatsby at the end of innocence and prevalence of

The Roaring 20s, The Jazz age, the 1920s were a time of great prosperity in the United States. The 1920s were an era of change, both politically and socially. Americans began to move into cities, rather than living on farms, and the nation's wealth more than doubled. Buying the same goods, listening to the same music, dancing the same dances, and overall having the same values, people felt united. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, these values are reflected in the characters’ lifestyles. A recurring theme in the novel is that money cannot buy a person’s true happiness, and this theme is exhibited in the various characters actions, choices, and what they value most in their lives.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American short-story writer and famous novelist, is well-known for having written The Great Gatsby in 1925, also known as his magnum opus. His personal life was also why many individuals knew about him. He was always known as an alcoholic, and after he finished writing The Great Gatsby, his alcoholic and depression problems got worse, so he tried to keep writing novels, like Tender is the Night, but they were all failures according to the readers (Willett, Erika). When Fitzgerald died, his novels started becoming great American novels, like The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald focused his stories on the Roaring Twenties and the American Dream, which grasped many individuals’ attention. The Great Gatsby was a perfect representation of the American society in that time period. Fitzgerald used his excellent writing skills to criticize Americans and influence them at the same time. All individuals wanted to be wealthy to be able to live a perfect life, but only people that were born in wealthy families could have that privilege in that time period. Immigrants also wanted to achieve their American Dream, but they would have to work very hard to make it happen (Library of Congress). Materialism was the finish line for all Americans. Since they were already wealthy, all they wanted to do was buy more and more. They felt powerful when they owned more things than others. The Great Gatsby gives the readers a “sneak peek” of what life in the U.S. was like in the 1920’s.

On first glance, The Great Gatsby is about a romance between Gatsby and Daisy. The true theme behind this wonderful novel is not merely romance, but is also a very skeptical view of the extinction of the American dream in the prosperous 19s. This loss of the American dream is shown by Fitzgerald's display of this decade as a morally deficient one. He shows its incredible decadence in Gatsby's lavish and ostentatious parties. This materialistic attitude toward life came from the disillusionment of the younger generation of the old Victorian values. Also, with Prohibition in effect, illegal bootlegging practices made for yet another way for Americans to fall down the path of

Scott Fitzgerald was written in 1925 during the post-war era. For that reason, a common theme throughout the novel was the portrayal of the consequences of actions brought on by the social normalities represented by the characters in the novel. Some characters, such as Jay Gatsby, are provided with many riches but are still unsatisfied and lonely. Mr. Gatsby states that during the war, he had wished to die. However, he was granted with riches and education. In his novel,. Fitzgerald intended to show the emptiness the world that it had brought onto itself. That is to say, the effect The Great Gatsby had on the 1920’s society was the guidance and awareness it brought onto the people after the