Dissilusionment in the 1920'S

A detailed Summary of Dissilusionment in the 1920'S

In the year 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, one of the greatest

American novels. Based simply upon the effect of the jazz age, Fitzgerald's novel is about the love of Jay Gatsby for Daisy Buchanan. The narrator of the story is Daisy's cousin Nick. Other important characters include Daisy's husband Tom Buchanan and his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Jay's love for Daisy leads to the novel's climax, which ends with his brutal murder. Affairs between Jay and Daisy, and Tom and Myrtle convey Fitzgerald's theme of disillusionment by uncovering the moral hollowness of the characters and causes the corruption inherent to the underbelly of high society to surface. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby focuses on the disillusionment of how moral hollowness can lead to lower things, such as man's inhumanity to man, causing the characters to loose control of their dreams.

The 1920's more so known as the "Roaring Twenties", was a fascinating era (Rayburn; A Decade of Giants). The world was changing. Entrepreneurs began mass production of the automobile. Women started working, smoking, wearing their hair bobbed and their skirts up to their knees (Rayburn; A Decade of Giants). Women like Fitzgerald'

http://www.louisville.edu/~kprayb01/1920s-real-deal.html. 5/10/01

ters have no feelings for the others except the ones they love. All of these problems cause more problems which soon after put an end to both Tom and Daisy's affairs.

Rayburn, Kevin. "The 1920's: The Roaring Twenties."

In the first chapter of The Great Gatsby, Nick states what his father had said to him when he was a young man. "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in the world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (Fitzgerald 1). Nick stuck to this saying throughout the entire novel, never speaking his mind or saying anything but the truth. Nick even states himself; I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known (Fitzgerald 64). This shows that Nick holds the truth in high regards and also lets the reader know that he is a credible narrator. Thus, in the novel, Fitzgerald refers to the moral hollowness of other characters. Hitchens states, to Fitzgerald, like Summset Maugham, money was everything we lived off of; everything fed off of it (Hitchens 29). Money serves as the basis for his characters' lifestyles. Without a dependence on money, Gatsby's lavish parties would be non-funded and therefore non-existent. This shows that!

Lost dreams are abundant in the story, The Great Gatsby because of human carelessness. If Gatsby could have realized that Daisy would never leave Tom, he could have avoided the pain she caused him and avoided his tragic death. If Tom and Daisy had been decent people, much of what happened in the novel would have never occurred, such as the death of Gatsby and Myrtle. Tom and Daisy leave town the day Gatsby and Myrtle die. Daisy had no heart for Gatsby and they were both very inhuman to anyone who wasn't as good as they believed th

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Approximate Word count = 1220
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English