Huy Pham Period 06 Mrs.

Carrasco

Behind the glamorous 1920s

The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, took place during the Roaring Twenties, which was an important milestone in the American history, for it marked the significant changes in the economy, art, culture, and society; nonetheless, there was a decline in social morality. The major characters in The Great Gatsby enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, in which they led wealthy and opulence lives; however, only a small percentage of Americans at that time were given those privileges. Needless to say that the 1920s was not only a prosperous time, but it was also a difficult transitional period for the majority of Americans. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby to reveal the issues and hardship that existed and somehow criticized the new corrupting values came at that glamorous time.

In the 1920s the U.S. became the richest nation in the world, the economy soared, people started to drive cars to work and to go on vacation; yet, not all Americans benefited. Eventually, there was the separation, the growing gap, between the rich and the poor. The characters in The Great Gatsby appeared as the upper class people that represented wealth and luxurious lifestyle of the rich in society; especially Gatsby, the leading character in the novel, possessed a gigantic mansion that had a huge garden, a bar, and a high Gothic library filled with first edition books. In addition to his extravagant lifestyle, Gatsby frequently threw tremendous parties for the people that he never knew just merely to get the attention from Daisy, the girl he loved. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all In fact, not all Americans at that time could live such enjoyable life. For instance, at

that time, farmers had to suffer from overproduction that made difficult for them to sell their produce, and for that reason they had to migrate to big cities to find jobs in factories, which led to the creation of urban America. However, there were also problems for the employed people, such as unskilled workers had no chance to move up with the low-paying wages, and they were eventually labeled communists by their employers when they went on strikes to demand for higher wages. The 1920s, which F. Scott Fitzgerald named The Jazz Age, was a booming time of America with consumerism, the idea of flapper, the inventions of the radio and telephone, and a developing automobile industry; sadly, came along with these enormous booms was a decline in social morality. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy and her husband, Tom, were reckless and irresponsible people. For example, in the accident that caused Myrtles death, Daisy let Gatsby take the blame, while she was the one who struck Myrtle. Moreover when the news of Gatsbys death spread out in town, Tom and Daisy hastily packed and left the town because they were afraid of having to be responsible for the mess that they had created. Nick, the narrator, said that Tom and Daisy . . . smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their . . . vast carelessness . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . ." Likewise an illustration of a decline in social morality was the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Taking advantage of the fear of communism and anti-immigrants attitudes, the Ku Klux Klan used them as excuses to oppose people of other races and religions by attacking and lynching people that were not white, including the Roman Catholics, Jews, African American, and foreign-born people. Surprisingly, by 1924 the organization memberships, mostly white male persons and native-born gentile citizens, reached a huge number of 4.5 million. Fortunately, KKKs criminal activities later led to a decrease of its power in society.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby to criticize the new ideals that were corrupting American culture, which could lead to the destruction of the society. The new materialistic life changed people, making them value money and power over the old social values. Gatsby, the main character in The Great Gatsby, did everything to become rich, because it was the only way he could gain the love from Daisy. When Gatsby had achieved his goal, he expected Daisy to leave her family to be with him, just because he had gotten a lot of money. Gatsbys death resulted from his obsession with Daisy, which made him hide the truths of Myrtles accident and led him to being murdered by Wilson, Myrtles husband. The author warned that everyone would face the same consequence like Gatsby did if they continued to lead those materialistic lives. The idea of valuing money and power over the social values once again appeared in the Roaring Twenties, during the Prohibition time when Al Capone and his gang made huge profits from bootlegging. They even went further to commit a more serious crime, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven members of Capones rival gang were shot to death, and the reason of the killings was to eliminate their competitors in the bootlegging business. 1920s was the time that the majority of American struggled to rebuild lives after World War I. Although there were still issues about the conflict between the rich and the poor, the corrupting values threatened to ruin the society, the 1920s was still the decade when America at its most prosperous time with the changes in economy, art, culture that helped define the U.S. as the most powerful nation in the world at that time.