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How the economy boom in 1920 effected society
How the economy boom in 1920 effected society
How the economy boom in 1920 effected society
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With the growing importance of wealth and materialism during the roaring ‘20s, riches became one of the most influential factors in a relationship. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan is torn between her past lover, Gatsby, who returns with an extravagant house and parties; and her wealthy but cheating husband, Tom. Upon Gatsby’s return, Daisy becomes infatuated with him and his new money, drifting away from her husband for a more successful man. It does not take long once Tom uncovers his wife and Gatsby’s affair that Tom reveals the origin of Gatsby’s wealth: buying up drugstores and selling illegal alcohol over the counter. Astonished and frightened, Daisy retreats into Tom’s arms and abandons the man who truly cares for her. …show more content…
Starting the epigraph, Fitzgerald quotes: “Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her.” As a symbol of wealth, the “gold” is worn upon the head for all to see. It is only when a man wears the “gold hat” and showcases his wealth to the public that women will pay attention and fall in love. Instead of connections and meaningful values, Americans chase after money and materialistic goods. Moving into the ‘20s, they lost interest in the committed and supportive family life and became caught up in the race for the American dream of materialism. Fitzgerald also portrays America’s greed through Daisy when she decides to marry Tom after reading Gatsby’s letter: “When we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck [...] Next day at five o’clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver” (76). Even though Daisy has an ineffable binding love with Gatsby, she gives up that love for an expensive piece of jewelry. Daisy can no longer wait for Gatsby to build a life full of materialism and riches for them, and instead marries Tom’s family money without even ever fully loving him. Similar to the epigraph, the only irresistible factor that American’s desire is a life of luxury. The traditional family setting is lost in the past, and in its place are grand mansions and custom-made
Much like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, society treats views and treats people with money differently than those without it. For example, Tom and Daisy get away with the death of Tom’s mistress because of their wealth “His family was enormously wealthy – even in collage his freedom with money was a matter for reproach” (Fitzgerald,23). Further the reason that Daisy had not married Gatsby all those years ago was because he was poor, it was not until he had an enormous house and lots of money “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me” (Fitzgerald ,367). It was not until Gatsby became wealthy did Daisy want to marry him “After she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house” (Fitzgerald, 311). Moreover, Gatsby’s own personal success was based on how Daisy perceived his house “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well loved eyes.” (Fitzgerald, 260). Critic Karielle Stephanie Gam agrees with this view of success “His wealth is never cloaked; from the mansion, to the weekly parties, to the countless dress shirts and expensive cars, it is evident that Gatsby is rich as sin and is initially, though his inclusion in the nouveau riche, the epitome of the American dream.” (Karielle Stephanie
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of goals suggest that Fitzgerald believe that obsessiveness and constant desires often lead to a wrong psychological impact, destructive of one’s traditions, morals, and would have an unplanned end of the lesson or life.
The American Dream is something common to most individuals, however it's one thing that everybody views in several ways. The American Dream is totally different for everybody, however they share a number of a similar aspects of it. The dream relies mainly on the setting of wherever one lives and one‘s social status. for instance, The Declaration of Independence was by Thomas Jefferson, who was an upper class white male. He needed freedom, however freedom for people like himself that were white land owning people. martin luther King, in his I have a Dream speech, also demanded freedom, but mostly for African Americans like him. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his book the great Gatsby, that he wants to eliminate the rich, which he was a section of. every American Dream is somewhat totally different, however all of them relate to the days that one lives in.
The dawn of the 20th century was met with an unprecedented catastrophe: an international technological war. Such a horrible conflict perhaps threatened the roots of the American Dream! Yet, most do not realize how pivotal the following years were. Post war prosperity caused a fabulous age for America: the “roaring twenties”. But it also was an era where materialism took the nation by storm, rooting itself into daily life. Wealth became a measure of success and a facade for social status. This “Marxist materialism” threatened the traditional American Dream of self-reliance and individuality far even more than the war a decade before. As it morphed into materialistic visions (owning a beautiful house and car), victims of the change blindly chased the new aspiration; one such victim was Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. As his self-earned luxury and riches clashed with love, crippling consequences and disasters occur. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby delves into an era of materialism, exploring how capitalism can become the face of social life and ultimately cloud the American Dream.
As depicted by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the 1920s is an era of a great downfall both socially and morally. As the rich get richer, the poor remain to fend for themselves, with no help of any kind coming their way. Throughout Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the two “breeds” of wealthier folk consistently butt heads in an ongoing battle of varying lifestyles. The West Eggers, best represented by Jay Gatsby, are the newly rich, with little to no sense of class or taste. Their polar opposites, the East Eggers, are signified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan; these people have inherited their riches from the country’s wealthiest old families and treat their money with dignity and social grace. Money, a mere object in the hands of the newly wealthy, is unconscientiously squandered by Gatsby in an effort to bring his only source of happiness, Daisy, into his life once again. Over the course of his countless wild parties, he dissipates thousands upon thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to attract Daisy’s attention. For Gatsby, the only way he could capture this happiness is to achieve his personal “American Dream” and end up with Daisy in his arms. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is somewhat detrimental to himself and the ones around him; his actions destroy relationships and ultimately get two people killed.
The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.
The Great Gatsby “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored.
Hugh Hefner once said, “I looked back on the roaring Twenties, with its jazz, 'Great Gatsby' and the pre-Code films as a party I had somehow managed to miss.” The parties of the Roaring Twenties were used to symbolize wealth and power in a society that was focused more on materialism and gossip than the important things in life, like family, security, and friends. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan as the epitome of the era. The reader sees these characters acting selfishly and trying to meddle with others’ lives. On the other hand, Nick Carraway, the narrator, acts more to help others and act honestly. Initially the reader sees Carraway’s views towards Jay Gatsby as negative as Gatsby’s actions are perceived as being like the Buchanan’s. As the novel moves forward, the reader notices a change in Carraway’s attitude towards Gatsby. Carraway sees Gatsby for whom he truly is, and that is a loving person who only became rich to win Daisy’s heart. But in this the reader also sees how corrupt and hurtful Gatsby’s actions were to the love of his life. Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy reveals that just as Gatsby’s dream of wooing Daisy is corrupted by illegalities and dishonesty, the “American Dream” of friendship and individualism has disintegrated into the simple pursuit of wealth, power, and pleasure.
In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class.
Benjamin Franklin once said “Money has never made man happy, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness." This is arguably one of the most cliché quotes of all time. If money cannot provide happiness, then what exactly can it do? The characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan open a door to a world in which money was the sole motivation for their success and the only reason for their power. When the reader uses a Marxist critical lens during chapter four of F. Scott 's Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the social hierarchy reveals how Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan utilize the importance of money and social power to manipulate others in their lives.
The world is filled with cheapskates, phonies, and two-faced people. Many use others for their own benefits. In The Great Gatsby, through the motif of superficiality, Fitzgerald critiques the theme that displaying materialism and superficiality can ruin true love and a chance at true love. Objects cannot define a relationship; it should be the feelings developed that defines the relationship of two people. The characteristic of materialism is a barrier for true love between two people. Nick Carraway has just moved to a West Egg, and his mysterious neighbor is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s long living dream is to rekindle his love and relationship with Daisy Buchanan, who is currently married to Tom Buchanan. He attempts to pursue his relationship with Daisy through his unexplained wealth. However, their love couldn’t be true because of their focus on “things” rather than each other.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of a man of meager wealth who chases after his dreams, only to find them crumble before him once he finally reaches them. Young James Gatz had always had dreams of being upper class, he didn't only want to have wealth, but he wanted to live the way the wealthy lived. At a young age he ran away from home; on the way he met Dan Cody, a rich sailor who taught him much of what he would later use to give the world an impression that he was wealthy. After becoming a soldier, Gatsby met an upper class girl named Daisy - the two fell in love. When he came back from the war Daisy had grown impatient of waiting for him and married a man named Tom Buchanan. Gatsby now has two coinciding dreams to chase after - wealth and love. Symbols in the story, such as the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the contrast between the East Egg and West Egg, and the death of Myrtle, Gatsby, and Wilson work together to expose a larger theme in the story. Gatsby develops this idea that wealth can bring anything - status, love, and even the past; but what Gatsby doesn't realize is that wealth can only bring so much, and it’s this fatal mistake that leads to the death of his dreams.
Nick describes Gatsby as “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life(Ch.3).” Such description unifies the appearance of Gatsby with people’s expectation of a man who accomplished the American dream. The obsession with wealth often blinds people from the potential crisis. The crisis of having everything they worked and struggled for redefined if the reality fails them. Just like strivers who chase the American dream, Gatsby also spent his whole life in pursuit of his American dream, which Daisy was a major component of.
Three works Cited Materialism started to become a main theme of literature in the modernist era. During this time the economy was good causing jazz to be popular, bootlegging common, and an affair meaning nothing (Gevaert). This negative view of money and the gross materialism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby serves to be a modern theme in the novel. Throughout the novel, the rich possess a sense of carelessness and believe that money yields happiness.
for the type of life she wanted to have. Gatsby knew this that is why