Preview

The Great Gatsby: a True Portray of the Roaring Twenties Essay Example

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
964 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Great Gatsby: a True Portray of the Roaring Twenties Essay Example
The Great Gatsby: A True Portray of the Roaring Twenties

The Great Gatsby a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays American society during the roaring twenties. Fitzgerald writes a remarkable novel that tells a tale of a man who claws his way from rags to riches; only to find that wealth cannot give privileges enjoyed by those born into the upper class. In The Great Gatsby settings differ: East Egg, West Egg, and Valley of Ashes. Society born into upper class lived in East Egg, the self-made rich resided in West Egg, and the poor lived in the exceedingly dusty Valley of Ashes. In The Great Gatsby, not only do settings demonstrate shallow qualities such as superficiality and class structure but mainly characters demonstrate qualities similar to these. Along with using his characters to tell a remarkable story, Fitzgerald uses the characters of his book to truly expose the negative qualities society had during the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald does an impeccable job on displaying how society was based on social standard during the nineteen twenties. Also, he displays how society lived carelessly during this era, and lacked morals. Fitzgerald uses characters to expose the Roaring Twenties with their social standings in society. The main character, Gatsby spends his entire life trying to attain money and status so that he can reach a certain position in life. His motivation for him to move to West Egg is to make money by any means necessary and win back the love of his life Daisy. Gatsby is hungry for a high position in society to win Daisy back. However, Tom Buchanan Daisy’s husband uses Gatsby’s criminal activity to humiliate him before Daisy. Tom Buchanan shows the importance of social standings when he finds out that his wife is having an affair with Gatsby. Instead of being disturbed by his wife’s unfaithfulness, he is more disturbed by the fact that she is involved with a man of an inferior social class. Daisy shows how important

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is perhaps one of the most recognized authors associated with the literary flowering of the 1920’s in America. The concern of most authors during this time was of the materialism that had suddenly swept the country. Credit was easy, interest rates were low, and corruption abounded. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays how the American dream of success was extinguished until it was nothing more than greedy desire. The sanguine American dream that had turned no one away and had given all an equal opportunity for happiness and success was no longer. Through use of his main character, Jay Gatsby,…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 1920’s was a decade full of careless spending, lavish lifestyles and the American dream. Anyone from anywhere could make it in life if they just worked hard enough. The 1920s proved to be a prosperous time for many, in fact so many people thrived in this decade that almost everyone thought that they would eventually grow to be very rich themselves. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby the sumptuous lives of the wealthy and the economic boom in America shaped the characters, plot, and setting of the novel. The effortless spending of the time influenced the lives of the characters as well as the background of the story.…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the narrator, Nick Carraway, moves to West Egg to work as a bond trader in Manhattan. He grew up in a prominent family. He came from an old money family in Chicago. He attended Yale University and is known as a very well rounded man. This novel is based off of the 1920’s era. It was named the Roaring Twenties after the Great War when the United States underwent a change in radical and social reform. During this period, society was torn apart due to the clash between old and new money. The Great Gatsby reflects the American society during this period and undoubtedly depicts the difference between traditional and corrupted values. The Great Gatsby is a great depiction of the Roaring Twenties because of greed, parties, and fast women.…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Roaring Twenties was a period of frivolous days and exciting nights. Times were prosperous and life was good for most. In The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about the fictitious life of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire (Gross 1). The setting of the novel is New York in the twenties, a time, and place, where people were jovial and carefree. In New York, more than anywhere, people did not worry about life's downs, but focused on the highlife and partying. Prohibition made partying difficult, but it prevailed nonetheless. In the novel, Fitzgerald's description of humans was of an appalling nature. He shows them as careless, greedy, and inconsiderate; much like they truly were in this decade. Inevitably he would become involved in some type of lackadaisical ways. Fitzgerald's writing's were significantly influenced by these surroundings. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing was profoundly influenced by events in his life, the exciting times he lived in, and the people he knew.…

    • 1668 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby, which was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story that reflects the life of the 1920's in New York. The 1920's was a decade of prosperity and opportunity, but also of prohibition and organized crime. The life in the 1920's was filled with moral decay (immoral decisions) and corruptness. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream is dead through immoral decisions and corruptness in Gatsby's and Myrtle's life.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a representation of American society of Roaring Twenties having three social class divisions amid the pursuit of American Dream and presenting the changing trend of social, economic and relationship freedom of females relating to gender, race, ethnicity, sex and sexuality within the class framework found in the portrayal of the characters. Divided people into the old money upper-class, the Buchanans and Jordan Baker; the new money upper-class, Gatsby; the middle class, Nick; and the working class, the Wilsons and minor ones based on wealth and family background are prevailed in the ways of their differences regarding education, residence, earning source, life style, reputation and attitudes.…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Roaring Twenties were full of marvels and mysteries; good and bad. The truth in society is unveiled in The Great Gatsby in terms of wealth and The American dream. The rich people in the story are extremely wealthy, and what they say about their backstory may not be what it is in reality. Rich people have easy lives in terms of money, but the middle class and lower class workers must to toil to make ends meet. There are times where it is ugly for the poor, and Fitzgerald makes it clear. Fitzgerald also makes it clear that there really is no American Dream, or at least, The American Dream is not what it is hyped up to be. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby shows the many faces of society in the Roaring Twenties and reveals the dark truth under them.…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, illustrates how the desire for money and materialism compels the American dream to decay. Fitzgerald uses Tom and Daisy’s daughter, Gatsby’s bootlegging, and the sin of adultery to show the downfall of ideals during this time period. The Great Gatsby examines the collapse of society’s morals and values in their attempt to try and pursue the American dream.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    November 28th, 2008. A man looks anxiously at the agitated crowd pressing harder and harder on the doors. The doors give way and the man holds up his hands as a final attempt to keep the crowd back. The front of the crowd pushes him aside but the rest of the crowd doesn’t know he’s there. The man’s fellow workers clamber and shove their way into the crowd to save him, but they too are trampled. The man dies of a broken neck, lung collapse, and head trauma. Two years later, people are bringing guns to toy stores in hopes of getting in line first, all to save 30% on items they don’t even need. The clearly defined reason behind this horrific event has become part of most Americans’ lives:the drive to acquire more stuff In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatz, a member of the lower class, exemplifies this intense desire for wealth and material goods. Although he only does this to impress the woman he loves, his story is a perfect way to summarize the birth of materialism. That driving force that causes Americans to want huge cars, huge houses, and tons of “stuff” to fill them with is the reason why so many Americans are in irreparable amounts of debt. Materialism, no longer restricted to a single class, is becoming the norm rather than the exception in America’s society today.…

    • 1633 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    How does the novel show that behind the glamour of the world in which Gatsby moves lie forces that are shallow and destructive?…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gatsby Vs Buchanan

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel exploring the roaring twenties and the American Dream. The story is told from the perspective of Nick Carraway during the summer of 1922. The novel explores the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful and fickle Daisy Buchanan and how it affects the characters around them, including the also wealthy Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband. Marrying him allowed Daisy to be as rich as Gatsby, but it also revealed that she and Tom had fundamentally different values than Gatsby. Although Gatsby’s and the Buchanans’ home lives appear similar, the small variances represent the fundamental differences between the occupants. Gatsby and the Buchanans both hold grand parties, but while…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. How does Nick describe himself at the beginning of the novel? As tolerant, and smart…

    • 1003 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920’s and follows the lives of Nick our narrator and the extravagant neighbor Gatsby. It addresses how the world was changing in the 20’s but the themes explored in this novel are still relevant today. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald utilises characters symbols and motifs to illustrate the themes of the social decline of america, the dangers of self creation, and the blindness created by love.…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay on the Great Gatsby

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Jay Gatsby’s journey to reunite with his past love Daisy is one of great tragedy and romance. Fitzgerald’s use of past, present, and future paints the picture of truly how tragic this five-year journey was for Gatsby. Gatsby loses the ability to live in the present because of his intense fixation on the past and his dreams of the future. Because of this inability, it becomes clear rather quickly that a relationship with Daisy is an unreachable goal.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Gatsby Daisy

    • 1543 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald is a critique of American prosperity, and the endless drive for wealth brought on by the economic growth against the background of Long Island, New York City. The Great Gatsby critiques materialism and the new American Dream, no longer defined by prosperity for equality, but by prosperity for the goal of excess wealth. Nick Carraway, the protagonist, views Jay Gatsby’s disillusionment about Daisy Buchanan, the object of his affection. The tale is not a story about past lovers, but instead represents a cast of characters chasing the American Dream which destroys them. The theme suggests that Americans have created a second form of aristocracy that the original founding fathers tried to escape. Each character…

    • 1543 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays