"Prosperity" of the 20's

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Recommended: Cause of economic prosperity in the 1920's

The 1920’s are often seen as a prosperous time for everyone, but that isn’t true. Only the top 1% wealthiest Americans got an 80% increase in disposable income, while everyone else only got a 9% increase in disposable income. In fact, 80% of all Americans had absolutely no savings at all. It was a prosperous time, but only if you were very, very rich. The theme for the novel The Great Gatsby is need for more excess money and pleasure rules those who have excess money and pleasure. Characters in the book care only for themselves or for their goals, and disregard everything else. The wealthy have even split into two factions, the old aristocracy of East Egg and the new self-made rich of West Egg. The rich dump their waste without any heed of those who are affected. They pay no attention to it even though they pass by the wasteland they created every day on their way to work. They take advantage of people and give nothing in return, not even taking notice of them after they have outlived their usefulness.
In The Great Gatsby there exist two factions of the wealthy: The old aristocrats and the newly rich. The old aristocrats come from “well-bred” families that have been around for generations. They often see others as being below them, and are therefore reluctant to engage in any kind of interaction with them. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are the main characters from this group. This quote from page 179 summarizes the Buchanans: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness”. The Buchanans cared only for themselves. If anything went wrong, they could always find false solace in their wealth. The other faction of the rich ...

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...y until they realize there isn’t a party going on. When a funeral is held, barely any of the people who knew Gatsby attended. “The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.” (Page 174). Not even one of Gatsby’s closest “friends”, Meyer Wolfsheim, goes to the wedding. “I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing now.” (Page 166). Even Daisy, whom Gatsby claimed loved him, didn’t attend the funeral. She and her husband, whom had been cheating on her beforehand, left to Chicago until well after the funeral was over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a scathing criticism of the rich men and women of 1920’s America. The only driving force behind them is the lust for excess money and pleasure.

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