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Why Is Location Important In The Great Gatsby

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As people continue to live on they soon come to realize that there is a time and place for everything. The significance of location plays an important role in the day to day of the common man. Location can impact the way a person may dress,speak,feel,respond, and act. Establishing societal norms, regulations and expectations which may lead to events like conflict, aggression, resolve, enjoyment, etcetera. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, the story takes place in an early 1920’s New York City. The protagonist Nick Carraway, Tells his story about a mysterious man commonly known as Jay Gatsby. Through Nick's honesty the reader soon learns that money does not always buy happiness. Locations such as The Valley of Ashes, …show more content…

In the novel New York City represents the corrupt underbelly of Gatsby’s world where oddities thrive. New York City is a location unlike any other in the novel. The values and social normalities in the city completely differentiate and contrast those of the Eggs or the Valley. An example of an obscure normality in New York City that would not be socially accepted anywhere else in New York is when, Nick and Gatsby are on their way to the city for lunch.While crossing Queensboro Bridge into New York, they pass by a limousine being “driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl”(Fitzgerald 72). This is something that may upset or catch someone off guard, an individual such as Tom who has such strong prejudice beliefs when it comes to people of colour. New York is also a place where corruption thrives, where businesses like drug trafficking and bootlegging are prosperous businesses run by men like Meyer Wolfsheim, in the words of Gatsby, “[he] [is] the man who fixed the world series in 1919”(Fitzgerald 77) . Men who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, are clever, and have their ways to get around the police. People like Tom and Wolfsheim thrive in a location like New York City, adding to the corruption and deception of the

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