Jazz Music in the Great Gatsby Essay

Another method that Fitzgerald uses to draw contrast between the rich and working class is through references to popular media of the time period. When Gatsby demands that Klipspringer play the piano for him and Daisy, Klipspringer plays a song “Ain’t We Got Fun”. The first sets of lyrics that are included in the book are about having fun all day. This is a reference to the lifestyle of the rich. The second set of lyrics focus more on the life of the working class man. “One thing’s sure and nothing’s surer/ the rich get richer and the poor get – children” (95). Fitzgerald uses this to continue his comparison. The fun filled lifestyle of the rich compared to the work filled lifestyle

“You look so cool…you always look so cool”, Daisy Buchanan dotingly admitted to Jay Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 118). The two are F. Scott Fitzgerald’s central characters in his 1925 classic The Great Gatsby, a tale of disillusionment and ill-fated dreams. Fitzgerald first depicts Daisy and Gatsby as enigmatic, complex characters. Later, however, he reveals them as corrupt. But this contrast is not merely a literary device—Fitzgerald uses his characters to prove that members of the Roaring Twenties were corrupt and deluded and that the “American Dream” is hopelessly unattainable.

The notion of the ‘American Dream’ is one of the repeated aspects portrayed in this book, since Gatsby’s entire life is dedicated to achieving this. The ‘American Dream’ comprises of grand opulence, social equality, wealth; more specifically, a big house with a big garden, the newest model cars, the most fashionable attire, and a traditional four-peopled ‘happy’ family. To Fitzgerald, the ‘American Dream’ itself is a positive, admirable pursuit. We can see this when Fitzgerald uses personification, “flowers”, to background positive connotations behind the idea of the ‘American Dream’. In regard to Gatsby, he achieves the wealth aspect of this ‘dream’, “he had come a long way to this blue lawn”; however, he was yet to be satisfied because he did not have Daisy. Ever since the very beginning of the story, Gatsby always associated Daisy with magnificent affluence, the white house, and the grand quality of being rich. Gatsby wanted everything ever since he was first introduced to the higher status. But Gatsby felt incomplete and unfulfilled even after getting everything he dreamt of, so he sourced this emptiness as not having Daisy, where in reality, “he neither understood or desired” the motives he thought he once had.

The “Roaring 20’s” was a time period where material and wealth mattered even more to people. Greed consumed people and the thrill of the time devoured people as well. Parties occurred daily and wealthy members of society appeared out of nowhere. The American Dream, of what once was a dream of self, became corrupted. The opportunity to be oneself became the opportunity to become rich and powerful. The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald exemplifies the corruption of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby, an upper-class member of society, allows the thrill of the American Dream to take over his life and determine his actions, in his extravagant plan of winning back his old love, Daisy. This corruption of the American Dream destroys not only his ideals and inevitably, his life but also sabotages Daisy as well. Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby’s versions of the American Dream are a true example of the hold and destruction that the American Dream had on people. Fitzgerald’s way of incorporating the American Dream reflects the truth behind the dream and shows the damage that it did to millions of people during the Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby is a criticism of the American Dream and how monetary greed and excess destroy the characters’ attempts to find true happiness.

The best example of the American Dream in the book The Great Gatsby is Gatsby himself. From the beginning of the book, Gatsby was a very mysterious character, partly because he didn’t tell very many people his true backstory. Gatsby often told people that he came from a wealthy and prestigious background, but that is not true. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” (Fitzgerald 98). Gatsby worked hard to achieve the image he had of his future. Gatsby was actually born James Gatz to a family of farmers in North Dakota. As he got older, he decided he wanted to change his circumstances. He changed his name to Jay Gatsby and attempted to find success. After not finding it through luck, he decided to work for success for himself. Through his hard work and innovation, Gatsby became the vision of himself he wanted to be, wealthy and successful.

First, the clearest embodiment of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby is Jay Gatsby because of his rags to riches story. However, Gatsby’s true American Dream was not achieved by the enormous mansion or fortune, or renown parties. “For Gatsby, wealth was never the end goal, it was always just a tool to get Daisy into his life” (Nagel 115-116). Daisy was the goal, Daisy is what

America's most culturally influential period of all time, the 1920s, produced hundreds of timeless pieces of literature, each one capturing a new light, a new view of the marketed “American Dream.” Distinctively, the product of F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most well known authors from America's ‘Roaring 20s’, The Great Gatsby, has stood out from the rest. Not only has this classic become more apparent with time but has revealed a realistic picture of the carelessness of the upper class in this era. Expressing this in depth outlook Fitzgerald uses his characters George Wilson, Myrtle Wilson, and more complex, Jay Gatsby.

The unattainability of the American Dream can also be parallel to the unattainability of Gatsby’s personal dream. Novels for Students explains “Jay Gatsby is a self-created personage, the embodiment of the American Dream…his loyalty to his dream and idealism mark him as one of the tragic heroes in American literature” (Telgen 70). Considering how loyal Gatsby is to both his dream and the American Dream, it is only appropriate that we consider all of the possible advantages to his loyalty. According to Bloom, Gatsby’s dream is essentially a mere extension of the American Dream due to his resort to material acquisition (28). As Gatsby decides to continue his dream through the acquisition of materialistic goods, he crosses over into the properties of the American Dream. Of course, as time goes on, Gatsby began to realize how impossible this dream is. The downfall of this dream was also the downfall of his dream of gaining Daisy. “Gatsby, like the young men who perished during World

At first “The Great Gatsby” seems like a love story between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, but the book is about the greed and wealth that was in the 1920s. Throughout the story the reader can get an idea of this time period, the jazz era, after World War 1 where there was a lot of wealth and excess materials. In “The Great Gatsby”, The author F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the american dream that anyone can get rich and also the big gap between the rich and poor in the 1920s through setting and symbols.

Written during the Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby had little recognition immediately after its 1925 publication preceding World War I. Following F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1940 death, the novel grew in popularity by selling more than twenty-five million copies worldwide and being acknowledged as an American literary classic. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of a stagnant Jay Gatsby in his despondent pursuit of love and triumph in the American dream, gave the novel prestigious recognition as a literary masterpiece. Through the symbolism of love and success, a corruption theme conveying Gatsby’s self-made life reveals the corrupt American dream.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is considered among the greatest of Jazz Age literature. The novel is from the perspective of Nick Carraway, a quiet midwesterner, and focuses on Jay Gatsby, a mysterious, newly wealthy young man. Gatsby’s pursuit shifts from wealth, the woman he loves, and ultimately his downfall. Set during the 1920’s, Fitzgerald creates a social commentary on the materialism, corruption of the American dream and absence of morals of the time period. Fitzgerald indicates the differences between “old” and “new” money as well as the middle and lower classes. His depiction of the deep pocketed East Eggers, who have prejudiced social attitudes, reflects especially on the blue blood of the 1920’s. Fitzgerald uses motifs throughout the novel to allow the reader to glance at the lifestyle of high society.

The Great Gatsby: The American dream is a chance to start a new life in a new setting. In this book, Gatsby’s American dream was Daisy. Once he met her, he devoted his life to pleasing her: he bought the mansion across the bay from her, had extravagant parties, etc. He always held onto his hope, or the green light, that he would win her back. Everything he did was for Daisy.

Music was a very influential part of the 1920s. The 1920s was called the Jazz Age because of the fast and happy music that was created during that time. Jazz of the highlight of that time period because it was a new type of music. Jazz started in the black community and slowly moved to the upper white community. There was African American Jazz and White Jazz. In the the book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows how music plays an effect on people’s lives. Jay Gatsby, a wealthy white man, threw parties at his home and in these parties live bands would play. Many strong small orchestras were created during this time and they traveled all of the country playing their music. Music brought life to many people during that time period. People

The Jazz age was a time of glamour, sparkle, parties, music, the extreme rich, the extreme poor, and the exultation of lawlessness; F. Scoot Fitzgerald was no exception. Fitzgerald was enamored by the life of money, status, and beautiful people on a hopeless spiral into self destruction. The moral decadence of America became a prevailing theme in the works of Fitzgerald, taking birth fully within The Great Gatsby.

The American dream and the pursuit of reaching it has been displayed in many great American literatures. In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is shown to actively attempt to reach his version of the American Dream by bringing back his past. Fitzgerald animates this by showing how Gatsby's idea of the American dream is made of getting his past love Daisy back and bringing back the past. Fitzgerald is successful in showing the flawed vision Gatsby has of the American dream. Not all versions of American dreams are realistic or attainable.