Title: The Great Gatsby & The Roaring Twenties Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Essay by cpc114High School, 11th gradeA, January 2010

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The Great Gatsby & The Roaring TwentiesPublished in 1925, the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, takes place during the significant times of the Roaring Twenties -- a time known for its confident, defiant, independent women (dubbed flappers), alcohol being served at speakeasies, and rise in popularity of Jazz music. “An era when bootleg gin flowed through hidden speakeasies, flappers kicked up their heels to the hot new strains of jazz, and gangsters like Al Capone ruled the underworld” (Name 1). America had also just come out of World War I, a violent and bloody chapter of the country’s history. Furthermore, the Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1919, banning the sales of alcohol nationwide. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan also took place. Fitzgerald successfully depicts the lives of Americans during these times.

After suffering through the losses of friends, husbands, fathers and sons during the war, Americans became entitled to live happier and more interesting lifestyles, living more optimistic and freely to comfort themselves from the emotional and depressing aftermath of the war.

Society began drifting away from the morals of their parents and living more worry-free lifestyles. Old morals and conservatism became a thing of the past, and Americans were permitted to have fun. With the inventions of the automobile, more forms of entertainment (such as the radio and movies), modernity flourished throughout the nation. National values were changing. This was the American Dream.

Fitzgerald successfully shows this change throughout the novel The Great Gatsby. The novel begins with the narrator Nick Carraway, a man who had graduated at Yale and fought in World War I. He reunites with his cousin Daisy Buchanan, who had married Tom Buchanan, whom also graduated from Yale. Tom comes from a very high social class family and...