Great Gatsby :: essays papers

vast GatsbyThe gr eat on gatsby and the fall of the american dream.The book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was an icon of itstime. The book discusses topics that were important, controversial andinteresting back in 1920s America. The smart is an exploration of theAmerican breathing in as it exists in a dilute period of history. The mainthemes in the book are the decay of morality and values and thefrustration of a modern society. The Great Gatsby describes the decayof the American Dream and the want for money and philistinism. Thisnovel also describes the gap amid the enough and the poor (Gatsby andthe Wilsons, West Egg and the Valley of the Ashes) by comparing thedifferences between the Western United States (traditional westernculture) and the Eastern United States (money obsessed values). On asmaller scale this could be seen as the difference between the West Egg(the new, money) and the East egg (the old money). The 1920s werea time of subversion and the degrad ation of moral values for the UnitedStates and many other countries. populace War One had unspoilt ended andpeople were reveling in the materialism that came with the end of it,new mass produced commodities such as motor cars and radios were woof peoples driveways and houses, money was more accessible(before the Great Depression). Cars were becoming a kindly symbol inthe 1920s as we can see with Gatsbys atomic number 23 cars, one of which he let onsto Nick and one of which kills Myrtle Wilson later on in the novel.Herbert Hoover (an American President) said in 1925 We will free radical outpoverty and put two cars in each garage. The parties that Gatsby heldevery week in the summer were a symbol of the carelessness of the time.Gatsby would disguise in the house while the guests, most of whom werenot even invited, would party, eat and drink until the early hours ofthe morning without even meeting the guest or even knowing who he was.People would turn up just to be seen or rep orted in the localnewspapers In his blue air garden people came and went like moths amongthe whisperings and the champagne. This shows the carelessness of theguests. Another quote well-nigh the parties refers to the way the guestsdevour the endless supply of food and never give a thought as to whogave it to them. Every Friday five crates of oranges and Lemonsarrived from a fruiterer In New York- Every Monday these same oranges