The Great Gatsby, written by American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, during 1925. The novel allows the readers to experience a glance into the materialistic American lifestyle that many detained during the 1920’s era. We follow the lives of two distinct social classes; new money, also referred to as noveau riche, which labels those living in West Egg and old money signifying those living in East Egg. The 1920’s era was the height of consumer culture and conspicuous consumption. The tax cuts of the 1920’s meant that tax rates had been dropped nearly 70%. Therefore, income tax cuts stimulated an economic growth meaning that there was more than enough money to go around. Known as the era of materialism and mass consumption, society had encouraged …show more content…
For example; cars, jewels, and the newest household appliances. Gatsby once stated in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, “I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.” This supports the idea that this period was deeply encouraged by materialistic and commercial beliefs. Like Gatsby and the other people in West egg, new money satirizes the empty pursuit of material wealth. The people labelled as “old money” do not have to work hard to obtain their wealth as they have inherited the money, while the people of “new money” have worked hard to acquire their wealth such as Gatsby. As we know, Gatsby was raised in a lower-class background hence meaning that the people in East Egg could not possibly like him. To gain friends and popularity, Gatsby hosts wild and extravagant parties attended by the most desired guest list. Gradually, Gatsby’s lavish parties became ‘the place to …show more content…
People were not invited – they went there.” The parties have nothing to do with Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s use of satirizing Gatsby’s party is used to make a larger statement about the 1920’s era referring to the materialistic principles so many of them had bestowed. Gatsby uses these parties in hopes to get his name into the world, in hopes of gaining Daisy’s attention. In the novel, Daisy is Gatsby’s lost love that is now married to Tom Buchannan. These parties are intended to express to Daisy that he is now financially worthy; he can now afford the luxury and society she is familiarised with. However, this attempt has failed
Andrew T. Crosland, an expert on the Jazz Age writings of author F.Scott Fitzgerald, wrote that Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby included over 200 references to cars (Crosland). This is not surprising as the automobile, like the flapper were enticing novelties at the time this book was written. The main characters in The Great Gatsby who, by the way, all drive cars are Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle and George Wilson. Attractive, yet enigmatic, Gatsby tries to win the love of an aristocratic woman, who rebuffs Gatsby for her upper class husband. This leads to Gatsby’s tragic murder after he is falsely accused of killing Myrtle with his Rolls Royce. The automobile, as
In his giant mansion on Long Sound Island, Gatsby hosts lavish parties, complete with colored lights, replete buffet tables, and a fully stocked bar with “… gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten…” (Fitzgerald 44) for anybody that wants to attend. No invitations are required, and everything is free. At a glance, this action appears generous and done out of pure goodwill, but the narrator later revels that it was all a ploy to attract the attention of Gatsby’s lover, Daisy Buchanan (83). Gatsby did not throw free parties to provide festivities and entertainment for others, he did it for the selfish reason to acquire the love and respect of Daisy
During a time when people were living the American Dream, few were prepared for or expected the stock market crash and the American nightmare that continued through the 1930s. “The cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile” (Fitzgerald 40). During the 1920s, people enjoyed the carelessness of life, attended parties, participated in new fashion and were generally prosperous. In the book, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby, the main character's rich neighbor, has huge parties every weekend in his mansion outside New York in hopes of meeting his long-lost-true love. Gatsby made his money through illegal activities and bootlegging alcohol for his parties.
Money Equals Happiness in The Great Gatsby Throughout history many societies have had upper, middle, and lower classes. The classes formed separate communities of diverse living and never crossed social barriers. In the book, The Great Gatsby, instead of streets and communities separating each class, there was a sound. On West Egg, the rich received their money not from inheritance but from what they accomplished by themselves.
How does reading a story benefits an individual and improve his or her daily life? Extensive reading does not only serve as an entertainment purpose, but it is also beneficial to many readers because reading fiction can help enhance a person’s understanding of the type of society the reader lives in. For example, the famous novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is regarded as a brilliant work of literature, for it offers a detailed glimpse of the American life in the 1920s and comments on various social problems during that time period. The novel tells the story of a mysterious millionaire named Jay Gatsby who lives in the fictional town of West Egg, located on Long Island, during the summer of 1922. Gatsby wants to pursue his first
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Gatsby attempts to be obtain his American dream with conspicuous consumption. Fitzgerald uses symbols of conspicuous consumption in money, cars and houses to show that the American dream of wealth and possessions doesn’t necessarily ensure happiness.
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.
Gatsby has all the money yet he is not happy when he throws gigantic parties at his house. Daisy, the one he tried to lure in with his parties, never cared to show up. The love shown by Gatsby towards Daisy, “’I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good night, old sport.’ He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight – watching over nothing” (Fitzgerald 145).
Enormous parties, all for one girl. In The Great Gatsby, a dirt poor farmer, Jay Gatsby, became a filthy rich man by engaging in illegal business. He threw massive parties in hope that his love of his life, Daisy, would come one time to the parties and sees him. Him and Daisy met five years ago and fell in love but then Gatsby had to go to war and Daisy married a rich man. In chapter 3, Fitzgerald uses words, images, and figurative language to describe the enchanting but very destructiveness of Gatsby’s party and party goers.
In the 1920’s, America changed its way of living from being more religiously based to being more materialistic. The idea that social status was directly related to how rich you were and how much you had was very strict in the 1920’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby highlighting the culture and materialism of the 1920’s like the riskier dresses that put more emphasis on the body than the woman’s personality, the boom of the illegal alcohol production a very addictive substance but specifically at parties, a place to flash social status. Gatsby, though, holds extremely expensive and boisterous parties so that he can flash his money, but to catch the eye of Daisy, the love of his life who lives on the opposite side of Long Island.
middle of paper ... ... Parkinson 96 This kind of so-called rebellious lifestyle encompasses a part of Gatsby; the part that puts ultimate wealth as a life goal and as a way to Daisy. This depiction of Gatsby’s battle for the girl proves that Fitzgerald’s view towards wealth had to have been influenced by the time period he lived in. It also demonstrates the emptiness of values and morals that were so common amongst the majority of the population at that time. This lifestyle spread like a virus to most people because it promised a happy life while being the social norm at the time.
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.
What happened to Gatsby's generation? The 20's were an age of a consumption ethic that was needed to provide markets for the new commodities that streamed from the production lines (Cowley, 53). The same problem exists today ... our materialistic attitudes are a result of the free market economy in this country. Consumers are taught that they need to have all these things that the businesses are trying to sell.
Gatsby throws nearly constant, extravagant parties in the pursuit of a superfluous ideal as a sort of way to give his life meaning after having achieved his goal of self enrichment. These parties are massively expensive, wasteful, and irresponsible, they each probably cost more than a worker in the valley of ashes makes in their entire life but Gatsby doesn’t care because he is the only person that matters to himself. Even his “love” for Daisy is tied up in a self-mythologized and egotistical vision of himself. When he took control of the car after Daisy hit Myrtle he did not stop the car because it would have burdened him and hampered his ambitions. This selfish worldview has been manifest in Gatsby his entire life, he left his family farm because he thought he was too good for it, he dropped out of college because it wasn’t enriching him fast enough, and he turned to crime because it was the quickest and easiest way to achieve the life of wealth and power that he worshipped. Daisy is much the same in this respect. She got back together with Gatsby because she thought he was now financially stable and left him when Tom revealed evidence to the contrary. Daisy is so far removed from responsibility and so immersed in her life of luxury and decadence that she practically ignores the existence of her daughter Pammy, leaving her upbringing to a
In the novel The Great Gatsby, the 1920’s was a “throwaway culture, in which things (and people) are used and then abandoned” (Evans). This is true of the lives of the wealthy elite who ruled the East and West Eggs, causing the domination of materialistic thought. The substitution of money for integrity ultimately provided a way for corruption to take deep roots in the characters. The frivolous lives and relationships described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby depict the emptiness of the shallow 1920’s era.