The Great Gatsby and America’s Tragedy
The 1920’s resemble an epoch of the most significant economic prosperity that the Western world has ever seen. The Roaring Twenties, or the Jazz Age, was a period of immense change for all people after The Great War. Women could vote, cars and telephones were immensely popular, jazz music peaked, and airplanes became widely used, all things never before witnessed in world history. In the heat of this era, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby emerged, highlighting many of the societal issues of this time and challenging the fundamental social ideas of the American Dream and economic greed. The novel has withstood the test of time by tackling the problems of American culture at its heart, many of which still persist today, and its lasting influence is evident through its proliferation of countless themes that are widely relevant even now: love, lust, greed, wealth, envy, identity and more. Each character represents a unique aspect and view of these issues, and Fitzgerald’s intricate prose reflects them in a way that is incredibly relatable to the reader. The importance of this novel is the main reason that it has retained its title as an American classic, even almost one hundred years since its publication, and it clearly has modern implications that make it an essential novel for all people to read.
Much of The Great Gatsby’s modern relevance comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s foundational disagreement with the idea that is the
Fitzgerald depicts 1920’s America as an age of decline in traditional social and moral values; primarily evidenced by the cynicism, greed and the relentless yet empty pursuit of prosperity and pleasure that various characters in The Great Gatsby exhibit. He presents a society in which uninhibited consumerism, materialism and an all-pervading desire for wealth have perverted the previously righteous qualities of the American Dream, corrupting it in the process.
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
Many novels are written as a means of scrutinising the details and flaws of a specific society. The author’s purpose is to use the novel as a lens through which they can offer their own critical perception. The highly praised novel The Great Gatsby provides such a view into 1920s America, an era which was often described as the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring 20s,” mainly due to the +and carefree nature of the wealthy. This higher class, who were essentially safeguarded by their money, lived life as if it was an endless party. It is this particular group that F. Scott Fitzgerald mainly targets when providing his criticism
The 1920’s was an interesting time where social and political ideas were changing; women gained the right to vote, the jazz age created a large popularity in music and dancing, but most importantly, wealth became a new way to express one’s class in a society as people moved from rural areas to cities. The Great Gatsby is a significant example that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in order to show how one’s wealth can affect the people they meet and the way people treat each other. Along with wealth, this book is about love, both from the past and from the present, that soon twists into a tragedy when Gatsby was killed while protecting the other, all in the name of love. Everything Gatsby did was to impress or protect Daisy because he was deeply
Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ is set in America of the 1920’s, a predominantly materialistic society revolving around wealth and status above all else. Fitzgerald depicts this obsession with money and luxury through complicated relationships full of trouble, infidelity and sorrow. The relationships Fitzgerald portrays all symbolize the materialism and hedonism of the age; each relationship is doomed to a certain extent based on the social class of each character.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes many universal and timeless themes to make the novel a classic. He emphasizes that most people lack insight and can not see the truth. To the majority of the society, the reality is an illusion that they create in their minds. The characters, events, setting, symbols and imagery contribute to establishing this theme.
The Great Gatsby written in 1925 was a novel that expresses F. Scott Fitzgerald’s concerns for the direction that America was headed in during that decade. During the novel he repeatedly gives examples of the contrast of the economic classes; the thriving upper class in extravagant living conditions while the lower class lives in filth like “fields of ashes.” To criticize the American upper class during the nineteen twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses vivid imagery in his revelation of Gatsby’s facade to give the reader an idea of the contrast among the classes of the early nineteenth century and how it continues to last.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby focuses on the excitement and adventure of the roaring twenties, a time filled with great economic success and parties said to last the whole decade. New to Long Island and New York, aspiring bond man Nick Carraway becomes infatuated with the lifestyle of his rich peers living the “American dream”. He gains interest in his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby who lives in an incredible mansion and has a vast amount of wealth. Gatsby uses his money to try and steal his love, Daisy Buchanan from her unfaithful husband, Tom. Gatsby’s greed inhibits his ability realize the repercussions of his actions and make reasonable decisions, ultimately results in his own death. SUMMARZE PARAGRAPHS AND TRANSITION
The Great Gatsby is often considered to be the great American novel. However, this notion must be challenged because the ideas that F. Scott Fitzgerald presents in his classic masterpiece clash with the distinctly “American” ideologies that citizens of this great country have been spoon-fed since birth. Ideas such as capitalism, the American Dream, and self-actualization are presented in one form or another and then systematically dismantled to show just how fragile they really are. In his famous novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the despondency of class struggle and other Marxist ideologies through literary devices such as setting, imagery, and character development. Ultimately, Fitzgerald offers a negative critique on how social
Brylee Seagraves Elizabeth West Research paper F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby develops a theme of greed and constant discontent within the main characters through literary elements such as tone, symbolism, imagery, and dialogue. In the Great Gatsby the contemporary society of a prosperous America during the time after the war is portrayed by optimist values using money and greed. Money weakens the values of even the most humble upperclassman making him vulnerable to the greed and lust. Fitzgerald does an incredible job representing the characters in Great Gatsby to convey the theme of moral disregard throughout the tone of the story. Through his ever present symbolism, Fitzgerald foreshadows inevitable danger is to follow.
The Great Gatsby takes place in the heat of the nineteen-twenties where countries, especially the United States, were economically booming after having recovered from World War One. This novel tells the tales of the fabulously rich while acknowledging, in part, the poor, working class who live during this time. In his work, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters and their actions in an unexpected fashion. He does not illustrate the triumphs of the twenties in a positive light, but, instead, mocks societal views by portraying them as full of: greed, falseness, and carelessness.
The roaring twenties was a time for happiness and celebration, but the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, shows a different side of this dynamic decade. Fitzgerald uses a poignant, yet hopeful tone to show the shadier side of the nineteen twenties most refuse to look at, while tying in the brighter side. In The Great Gatsby, the reader is sucked into a story of corruption, and empowerment by the rich hidden by extravagant parties and bright colors. Jay Gatsby, who only dreamt of wealth and love had an ideal dream life, that ideal life could be defined as his “American Dream”. His dreams were later crushed by very powerful people, careless people, people who used and abused others to get their way, no matter the consequences.
The era known as the Roaring Twenties was a time of immense joy, opportunity and prosperity. Unfortunately, the 1920’s was also a period where greed, corruption and organized crime took a firm foothold. The exuberant happiness of the time was only trumped by its gap between the rich and the poor. The novel shows the true face of the so-called Age of Wonderful Nonsense with the writer’s own personal conflict. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s groundbreaking novel The Great Gatsby has stood the test of time with its messages of how corruption, extravagance, and overindulgence can destroy people’s lives and relationships.
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.
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