Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald Essay

The USA in the 1920s is remembered as the ‘Roaring Twenties’, an age of new life, of hedonism and opportunity following the horrors the Great War. The decade is synonymous with wealth, materialism and unprecedented freedom. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby provides an insight into the exciting and prosperous lives of the American people as they embark on the limitless potential of the American Dream and therefore it conveys a picture of 1920s American society. With

The 1920’s, also known as the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring Twenties”, was a time of decadence. The “Roaring Twenties” was common with constant variation in diplomatic, ethnic, and religious standards. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby as an account for the unstable time of egotistic pursuits of wealth and satisfaction.

Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s unrequited love for Daisy is evident, as well as George Wilson’s love for his wife, Myrtle. Unlike Gatsby, Wilson is the least important character in the novel due to his important role in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unique plot scheme that led to Gatsby’s murder. However, both characters have similarities and differences the reader is incapable of detecting due to Wilson’s brief mentions in chapter two and seven. Gatsby and Wilson’s love is similar due to their love murdering them both and their affection by remaining loyal to their women, but Gatsby was more ambitious to obtain a wealthy girl like Daisy and Wilson was forcing Myrtle to move west.

We begin our introduction to Gatsby in a fantasy of mansions and money. However, the film 's progression unravels Gatsby’s superficial layer of wealth to reveal a delusional man who has built himself on a futile dream. Together we will explore the religious and sociological views upon Gatsby’s failure as dictated by McLennan (2014) and Islam (2014).

Materialistic possessions became the center of popularity in the 1920’s, life became all about who could get the most Women and throw the biggest party. These materialistic items were used to acquire other non materialistic things such as love and social status. These goals were often unattainable, specifically for three characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's’, The Great Gatsby. Love and social status were the unattainable dreams of Myrtle, the status driven cheater; Wilson, the shooter; and Gatsby; the Daisy craving self-made millionaire.

The 1920s gained its nickname, The Roaring Twenties from its wild and carefree lifestyle. The extensive wealth of the time filled most nights with parties, dancing, crazy antics, and illegal alcohol. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, encompassed all of the aspects listed above. Not only did the book express the exciting side of the Twenties, it also expressed lack of morality of the time. According to The Great Gatsby, this lack of morality stemmed from the focus on material items, drinking, and dreaming.

The twenties was a time period that had a perfect image that everyone wanted to live but it painted over reality. During the 1920s, America went through a phase in a rebellious way, The Great Gatsby gives a great example of how this was during that time. How does Fitzgerald's famous novel The Great Gatsby reflect the characteristics of America during the 20s era. The Great Gatsby reflects America by the war‘s impact the nouveau riche and society’s replacement of God.

Example: "And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy." (The Great Gatsby)

Gatsby’s weekly parties are full of people and life, with everyone who is anyone in attendance. These parties represent the initial view of how Gatsby “succeeded”. On first glance, Gatsby’s house was “like the World's Fair (Chapter 3)”, or full of people who are excited and happy to be there, but, like the World’s Fair, they didn’t want to meet or care for the host. Gatsby's parties show how empty his original success was, with everyone celebrating his wealth but him.

Gatsby believes that in order to achieve the past love with Daisy he first must show her that similar to Tom her husband he also has that important social standing. To show this high social class or imitation of the high social class Fitzgerald uses props such as books and clothing. For example in chapter three at the party that Nick attends the owl-eyed man said "See!" he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too - didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?" (p.30). The fact that Gatsby has spend money on all of these books that he has not even cut open to read shows that he desires this idea of social power and believes that to come about the American Dream he must first fit in with the upper class or old money. He shows daisy how wealthy he is by throwing his shirts all around the room. He does this in chapter four. This shows how much he longs for her approval. After Gatsby shows Daisy the shirts she starts to weep at their beauty, this shows how much social statues can effect someone.

Considered as the defining work of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925, when America was just coming out of one of the most violent wars in the nation’s history. World War 1 had taken the lives of many young people who fought and sacrificed for our country on another continent. The war left many families without fathers, sons, and husbands. The 1920s is an era filled with rich and dazzling history, where Americans experienced changes in lifestyle from music to rebellion against the United States government. Those that are born into that era grew up in a more carefree, extravagant environment that would affect their interactions with others as well as their attitudes about themselves and societal

To make this possible, Gatsby has to secure a high status in society to even be in the same circle as Daisy or even have contact with her. After this, he waits as week after week passes, “half expecting her to wander into one of his parties, some night” (79). Eventually this paid off because one night Tom and Daisy decide to attend one of Gatsby’s celebrations (104). Gatsby now has attained his status as part of his American dream through this, and, in his mind, is closer to achieving the other parts as well. Fitzgerald’s experience during the 1920’s was one of great influence on his life and writing. In relation to the novel, he led a life based on status and shallow relationships, and this was typical of the time period he lived in. The decade of the 1920’s changed the way the typical American’s priorities were ordered. Even Fitzgerald “relied on personality, which depended upon appearance, grooming, gesture” (Lehan 58). The fact that the author lived this kind of lifestyle shows how it influenced his writing including The Great Gatsby. The disillusionment of Gatsby’s dream in the story is caused by these choices and changes that Fitzgerald experienced throughout the 1920’s. In addition, Fitzgerald shared a similar routine as Gatsby as he was a frequent partier and drinker (Brackett 58). This most likely produced the leading role that the image of parties played in the story. Fitzgerald’s

How came people did not respect Fitzgerald’s writing in the twentieth century, but why people are respecting and valuing Fitzgerald work in the twenty-first century? Fitzgerald had a hard time to profiting from his writing, but he was not successful after his first novel. There are three major point of this essay are: the background history of Fitzgerald life, the comparisons between Fitzgerald and the Gatsby from his number one book in America The Great Gatsby, and the Fitzgerald got influences of behind the writing and being a writer. From childhood to adulthood, Fitzgerald faced many good and bad experiences that inspired him to achieve his own American dream in a short amount of time.

F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, “The Great Gatsby”, features the affluent, upper-class characters of Jay Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and the lead, Nick Carraway, and follows them throughout their New York lives in the summer of 1922. Nick is presumably so tolerant and willing to be around these people even when he discovers major character flaws because of their similarity with social placement. As this novel took place in the midst of the “roaring twenties”, which was filled with mass consumerism due to the amount of money owed to the United States from European countries after the ending of World War I, it’s no shock that the growing rift between the upper and lower class’ income built up these characters opinions

As Bertrand Russell once said, “It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” Indeed, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, set during the Roaring 20s, displays the materialism of the characters through their concern to obtain more belongings. The Roaring 20s is considered as one of America’s most prosperous eras, however, Fitzgerald denounces the loss of moral values, the loss of identity, and the deception about achieving a person’s American Dream in addition to the hierarchy ruled by the rich. Thus, in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses characterization and symbols to explore the superficial nature of the Roaring 20’s and in doing so exposes the dangers