What Is The Difference Between The Great Gatsby Book And Movie

The era in which The Great Gatsby takes place was a unique time in American history. The 1920s were also known as the Jazz Age, a time when jazz was the most popular kind of music and was played live in clubs and speakeasies. Organized crime became an explosive problem in America during the 1920s, and the Italian mob played a large role in distributing alcohol to the people during Prohibition, a time when selling alcohol was banned but drinking it was not. Cars were made accessible to everyone, although few people had vehicles as fancy as Gatsby’s yellow car. The massive explosion of consumerism in the 1920s was something that Fitzgerald ridiculed often in his novel, and it is well ridiculed in the 1974 version of the movie.
Fitzgerald, however,
One such jewel was the scene where Myrtle decides to purchase a puppy. While on the way to the city with Nick and Tom, Myrtle sees a man on the street selling puppies and decides on a whim that she needs one. She adopts it, carries it around all day, and then we see nothing more of said puppy for the rest of the movie. This scene, which was also included in the novel, shows the effect of consumerism on the general population in the 1920s. It led people to make extravagant and unnecessary purchases simply because they had the finances to do so. Fitzgerald often criticized the excessive consumerism in America, and it was said that he believed that “Americans never give up on trying to impose quantity upon experience” (Berman 34). Jack Clayton’s version of The Great Gatsby was superior in the sense that it showed more clearly and accurately how consumerism was entwined in people’s lives in the era in which the novel took place. In addition, Clayton included details that more accurately portrayed Myrtle’s unhappiness. Myrtle and Wilson fight prior to the car accident that claims her life, and Myrtle tells him she is unhappy with him because he is not the man she thought he was, but a man so poor he had to borrow a suit for their wedding. Since Fitzgerald so carefully included these details in the book, he would prefer the 1974 version