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American society changed in 1920
Social changes in the 1920's
The greatness of gatsby in the great gatsby
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In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the 1920s are displayed as a time alcohol, parties, and glamour. The Volstead Act banned the commercial distribution of alcohol making it more appealing than ever before. The ban led to the development of speakeasies, illegal nightclubs where people would gather to drink, dance, and have the time of their lives. The 20s were also a decade of economic prosperity. People bought everything they could afford and even more was bought on credit with little regard for possible future consequences. Women wore short dresses, cut their hair, and dressed much more revealingly than the Gibson Girls of the past decade dressed in floor length dresses and high collars. It was the age of movie stars and radio. Also, …show more content…
This directly relates to the carefree lifestyle and romanticism of the people of the 1920s which will eventually lead to the Great Depression. The author also takes many universal literary ideas and alters them to demonstrate that just as the reader doesn’t expect certain twists in the plot of the novel, the people of the time did not expect the 1920s to experience such a terrible change in fortune. Fitzgerald switches around …show more content…
This is similar to how under the surface, the 1920s was not what it appeared to be. Daisy Buchanan, for example, is rich and beautiful. People see her as just a pretty face and believe that she can’t think for herself. In reality, this is just a front she puts up in order to protect herself from being emotionally damaged by Tom’s affair. George Wilson appears to be lifeless and a pushover, but once Myrtle dies he goes out and murders Gatsby. The best example of this, though, is Jay Gatsby. He is nothing like the audience anticipates him to be. From the moment the reader picks up the book, Gatsby is known as the Great Gatsby and people expect him to be incredible. The first few chapters include rumors that Gatsby murdered someone, is related to the Kaiser, and is a German spy. The perception of Gatsby is that of The Wizard Oz, there is greatness in his mystery. Due to this mystery, rumors spread and build him up to be an incredible and brilliant man. It is brought to light that Gatsby isn’t as great as the title says. He is self-conscious, careless, unhappy, and alone. The moments when he is at his worst are before he dies and is waiting for a phone call from Daisy. The author describes that “...Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had
Looking back in American history, America has tended to have different phases lasting around ten years. The nineteen-twenties will always be remembered in history because of the triumphal progress in many different areas. The twenties were a time of great change in America in many different areas. The changes were in the laws, the lifestyle of women especially and the moral values that they lived by. One of the major events that sculpted this era was prohibition. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the life of crime associated with prohibition causing the enormous transformation of Jay Gatz to Jay Gatsby, and also causing a tremendous change in America.
Materialism has a negative influence on the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The most terrible thing about materialism even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offers a prospect of deliverance.” This quote, stated by Malcolm Muggeridge, says that people get bored with the things that they have when they get new things all of the time. When they get bored with these things, they turn to stuff like sex, alcohol, and drugs. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby are greatly influenced by money, and material things. The negative influence that materialism has on these characters is shown throughout the entire novel.
The Roaring Twenties was an era that transformed America's views on women's gender roles and relationship standards. The Great Gatsby is a story of a wealthy man named Jay Gatsby told through the view of Nick Carraway. Gatsby has been living in the past his entire life with his one true goal of reuniting with his first love Daisy Buchanan. Throughout the story we see the ups and downs of being a rich elite in society and the values of life and scandals in the 1920s. Gender roles and relationships of the 1920s influenced F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby because Jordan defies the common girl gender role, Daisy wants her daughter to be a fool, and Tom abuses women physically and mentally.
America in the 1920s was a time of prosperity, but also a time of social and political change. Many select people including the rich gained a more rebellious, law-defying nature that turned against both traditional social norms and laws. Women finally gained the right to vote after centuries of being suppressed. And the nation split on the issue of Prohibition. The characters and themes in The Great Gatsby are the perfect example of the decade’s archetype.
Considered as the defining work of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925, when America was just coming out of one of the most violent wars in the nation’s history. World War 1 had taken the lives of many young people who fought and sacrificed for our country on another continent. The war left many families without fathers, sons, and husbands. The 1920s is an era filled with rich and dazzling history, where Americans experienced changes in lifestyle from music to rebellion against the United States government. Those that were born into that era grew up in a more carefree, extravagant environment that would affect their interactions with others as well as their attitudes about themselves and societal expectations.
The Roaring Twenties was an age of prosperity, revenue, and glamor. After years of war and debt, the market bounced back in full swing, making the sought after American Dream finally possible as cash flowed into the wallets of the newly rich. Technology and other advancements made everything bigger, brighter, better; yet there was still a sense of disillusion and prejudice in this shining post-war world. F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the excitement of the era, as well as its shortcomings, in his novel The Great Gatsby. Through the tale of the newly rich and mysterious Jay Gatsby and his love for well bred socialite Daisy Buchanan, he tells the story that lay underneath the glittering Jazz Age, one about the preconceptions and injustices that
The Roaring Twenties was a time great spending and extravagance as the rich had no limit to their wealth with the Gilded Age, which produced hundreds of millionaires. Even though there was new rush of modernism into Twenties, there was still traditions that had a big role in during the time period. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald show misogyny, gender roles, feminism and the stereotypes of the Twenties through characters like Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, and Myrtle Wilson and their behavior’s.
The Roaring Twenties was a time of great changes. The Jazz Age began after World War I and ended when the stock market crashed. The economy in that time was through the roof but Americans felt cheerful and carefree after WWI ending which caused people to party everywhere. During the war, women had to take over jobs men had while they fight but after the war, they became free which lead to the time of the flappers. During this time, there was a legal ban on making and selling alcohol which was the prohibition. All of these events tie into F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby’s historical background.
The 1920s was a time in history that allowed a small amount of people to flaunt their wealth and live fabulous lives while others strived to survive day by day. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism in the classic novel, The Great Gatsby to show how money, power, and love both separate and unite these different lifestyles. Fitzgerald uses an oversized billboard, a green light, and the valley of ashes to highlight his themes and impact the plot.
His word choice and alluring descriptions continue to mesmerize readers. For example, the forever tragic The Great Gatsby finishes by simply stating, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 189). Perhaps The Great Gatsby’s most distinguished quote, the mellifluous flow between the words, and sense of longing that Fitzgerald conveys are all trademarks of his work. In an era where the typical young adult reads simple and empty books written purely for ephemeral entertainment to make a quick dollar, Fitzgerald’s eloquent and thought provoking works serve as a breath of fresh air to readers. Likewise, they can also use his work as a model to learn from and ameliorate their own ideas in writing. Likewise, the consistent use of metaphors in The Great Gatsby engages the reader further into the story and begins to make them think in ways unimaginable before. As Azar Nafisi explains to her students, an artist “appeals to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain” (Q.T.D in Nafisi #).
Scott Fitzgerald portrays the events in his life, as well as the corrupted morals and behaviors of society in the early twentieth century, in his novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald used his personal experiences with his life including his wife, military career, and social atmosphere for inspirations while writing his novel. The upper class was depicted primarily because of the newly adapted morals they possessed. The prime sources for the change in morals was the rationing of clothing, the prohibition on alcohol, and the sexual promiscuity found commonly among the American soldiers discharged in France. The Roaring Twenties will go down in history for the corrupted morals and behaviors that broke the traditional
Romanticism is the idealized view of reality or an optimistic view of reality. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character named Gatsby has an romantic view of the world and he shared this view with his friend and neighbor Nick Carraway. In short. Gatsby’s trait of romanticism led him to believe that he could achieve the “American Dream” ever since he was a poor child growing up in North Dakota, consequently, he met a rich man named Dan Cody and a beautiful rich girl named Daisy on his journey, and he had his first taste of money, but his ambition eventually got him killed when had to risk it all for the girl.
The Great Gatsby was written in the midst of the 1920’s, otherwise known as the Roaring Twenties or the “Jazz Age.” This was just after World War I, when the economy was thriving. Fitzgerald portrays multiple characters in Gatsby as wealthy, greedy, and materialistic, thus providing the audience with insight as to how he viewed
There was also a change in American culture in the 1920s. This was the time when jazz music was introduced to the world, and the roles of women were changed. Jazz music is a new thing for Americans. It was created by African Americans, and it had a huge impact, on the society. This music mainly affected the youth and women of this time period.
The 1920's in the United States was a time of economic growth in which people lived frivolous lives by believing their money would make them happy. It was a time of alcoholic prohibition and a time of emancipation for women. Thus, it was a time of parties, drinking and wild women for those who could afford it. Those who were at the bottom of society were constantly striving for the top of the economic ladder.