Social Breakdown In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Great Gatsby is full of characteristics of modernism. Social breakdown is one of those characteristics in the book. Social breakdown means a theory that posits that individuals that are socially isolated living in atomized socially disintegrated society. One of the ways social breakdown occurs in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book is the heavy drinking. Drinking was sinful at the time due to the Prohibition, which was a law in New York. There were other ways social breakdown occurred in the story. The occurrence of social breakdown in the story helps make the story so interesting. Heavy drinking occurs a lot through the story. This was against the law due to Prohibition. People in the story still decided to drink even with this law being passed. This caused a breakdown in the society. All the drinking caused people to get in trouble with the law. This also didn’t help with the social classes getting mixed up due to the drinking. This was only one of several other ways that social breakdown occurred. Throughout the story, affairs played a big part in social breakdown. There was two affairs that played the largest role in …show more content…

This had to do with Gatsby dealing the alcohol. People would come to his parties and drink his booze while all of this was illegal. Gatsby however did not care. He was just happy that everyone was having a good time at his party. He didn’t care if he got in trouble because he was rich enough to get out of prison. This caused a lot of controversy because people who were in the lower social classes who wanted to drink couldn’t, while higher social classes could. There made the people of the lower classes mad because since they weren’t as rich, they couldn’t get away things people in the upper classes could get away with. This was not good for all the social classes who were not getting the same treatment as the other

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