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The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Better Essays

To this day and age, nearly 100 years into the future, the 1920s are seen as a decade of good music, outrageous parties, and beautiful people. However, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the degeneration of society and people during that time due to their immaculate wealth and their glamorous lives is captured perfectly. The entire book seems to revolve around one major theme: the decline of the American dream and the perfect society that supposedly came with it. This is set apart from the other themes in the book because instead of being mentioned directly, it is hinted at by means of oratorical words and phrases. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald successfully condemns the corruption of the jazz age through the use of …show more content…

This contrast is shown most vividly in the way that Tom Buchanan talks about Gatsby, constantly interrogating him with suspicions about where his wealth really came from. Tom is also increasingly self-conscious about the fact the his old money lineage isn’t what the people want anymore, and that his legacy is falling, “She’s [Daisy] not leaving me…Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger,” (Fitzgerald, 133). Although this kind of prejudice and insecurity can be easily attributed to Tom’s overall character and personality, it is also connected with the way money and obsession with wealth had ruined the moral standards of society at that time. Another motif that connects with moral decline is the weather throughout the book; Fitzgerald has done every scene where weather is described vividly on purpose. When the four head to New York City on the hottest day of the summer, the corruption inside of Daisy and Tom is shown, and it is no coincidence that as their greed for money is exposed, the sun is heating up the day, as described by Nick, “The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer,” (Fitzgerald, 114). In another instance, Gatsby dies at the end of summer, when leaves from the trees are starting to fall, “The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it [the water] slowly, tracing, like the leg of a transit, a thin red circle in the water,” (Fitzgerald 162). It’s almost as if

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