Why Do People Drink In The Great Gatsby

Living Drunk on Life or a Drunken Life?
In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald disapproves of alcohol, which is made clear by how drinking makes the characters jaded, and the degradation they face while drunk. This disapproval is likely due to the real-life experiences that Fitzgerald had with alcohol (O’Hearn).
Fitzgerald shows how special things become mundane and people take things for granted when a person drinks too often and in excess. Nick notes that Mr. Sloane didn’t want a drink, though Gatsby still asked if he wanted “a lemonade,” or “a little champagne,” to which Mr. Sloane replies, “nothing at all, thanks” (Fitzgerald 101). To go from offering a simple, non-alcoholic lemonade to offering Champagne shows just how spoiled and jaded the characters are with regard to alcohol and their luxurious lifestyles. Saying “a little champagne” also implies that Champagne is an everyday drink when in reality it is symbolic of celebration and is often brought out only for special events. Additionally, Nick describes Gatsby’s parties as having the same “sort of people… profusion of champagne, [and] many-colored, many-keyed commotion” (Fitzgerald 104). The use of the word “profusion” to describe the

This notion may very well be based on Fitzgerald’s own experiences with alcohol (O’Hearn). When one of Gatsby’s guests is describing Miss Baedeker’s typical drunken behavior, she notes that “‘when she’s had five or six cocktails she’s always screaming like that’” (Fitzgerald 106). Going along with the pattern of regularly drinking in excess in Gatsby’s world, guests at his parties regularly make fools of themselves while under the influence. The fact that no one is worried about the woman acting peculiarly because she “always” acts in this manner exhibits the unfortunate regularity and degrading tendencies of those who drink too