The Essence of The 1920s in The Great Gatsby

The 1920’s, also known as the “Roaring Twenties”, was a time for change, success, and traditional/cultural change. This was also known as the “Jazz Age”, or simply a time of youth, wealth, freedom, partying, and self-indulgence. During this time, people rejected trad. moral standards and became carefree due to this decade of change. In the US, the 1920s was also a time in which the “American Dream”, or how if you worked hard you earned big success, became relevant. With that also came the prohibition, or the illegal sale and distribution of alcohol. Many people made themselves rich through bootlegging, aka the illegal sale of goods, and the “American Dream” was basically unattainable because of how capitalism affected those living. The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald, captures the essence of the 1920s by using scenes and examples of how people are carefree and exuberante and reject traditional standards, bootlegging to illegally gain money, and how the idea of an “American Dream” impacted those in the “Jazz Age”

First, The Great Gatsby captures the essence of the 1920s by describing and illustrating the carefree and exuberant life of people, using scenes of partying, alcohol consumption, and romance. In the beginning of the chapter, readers are introduced to a man named Jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby would throw parties every weekend in his huge mansion in New York. People would go there to party and have a nice time. Nick thinks these people come for their own benefit to party, and that they really didn’t care about who was throwing the party, they just went for their own good of having fun. Nick says, “People were not invited — they went there. . . . Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission”. As the 1920s was known as the “Jazz Age”, it was common that people would party because of the turning away of traditional morals and society and the new styles of dance and music that existed in the time period. “Social changes were not limited to the young. Productivity gains brought most Americans up to at least a modest level of comfort. People were working fewer hours a week and earning more money than ever before” Britannica ¹ . The fewer work and more money contributed to the exuberance and happiness, but also carelessness of these people. The party was just one example of showing people’s shining exuberance within the decade, but also one that showed people’s true intentions and examples of carelessness. This carelessness came from the wealth of those, or the gap between the rich and the poor. To people like Tom and Wilson, you can see some differences between the two, like how Tom is a rich college graduate and is a rich businessman who owns a big mansion and then Wilson who owns a garage in the poorly, dusty area of the Valley Of Ashes. As Tom was a rich person he deeply felt like money was his power. He also had a mistress named Myrtle Wilson while he was married to Daisy. This could mean that he was using Daisy for his own benefit. As both of them came from families of great wealth and education it was good for them to stay together. It is said that “they were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 191). The imagery of smashing things show how reckless of a couple that Daisy and Tom are and it shows that they would go the extra mile to ruin things and make other people do things for them. Really shows how money influences people to act like Tom and Daisy- reckless and not careful thinkers. Turning back to the party scene Nick criticizes the people for throwing around wealth and money and not caring much about others, as they again, were only there for the party. Also a lot of people gained money during this era which let them buy things that were easily accessible showing that money had value. People wanted to prosper and grow also during these times and their carelessness showed when they started to buy stocks with little attention and how stocks were widely overpriced for the gain of material wealth of business owners that could have been the result of the stock market crash of 1929. As being careless people in this era that the book shows through the exploitation of money and through characters like Daisy and Tom, being more open to rejecting traditional norms and loving money, bootlegging was also a way to collectively gain a ton of money using this illegal style business to also buy and distribute the sale of alcohol.

Next, the book explains how bootlegging was relevant in the 1920s, since it was an age of Prohibition and people would gain from this illegal sale and distribution of alcohol. As introduced already to Gastby, it is also known that he didn’t get rich from working hard. He was a part of an illegal bootlegging network, in which he used to get a lot of his money from. Nick and Tom quickly have a discussion about the business of bootlegging. “ ‘Who is this Gatsby anyhow?’ demanded Tom suddenly. ‘Some big bootlegger? ‘Where’d you hear that?’ I inquired.n‘I didn’t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.’ ‘Not Gatsby,’ I said shortly” (Fitzgerald 115). Tom accuses Gatsby of being in an illegal bootlegging business when in an argument, as his fortune was said to be made from selling illegal alcohol, especially because it was the time of Prohibition and the demand of alcohol was pretty high. Bootleggers were people who would illegally sell and distribute alcohol or other goods to people. “After the Eighteenth Amendment went into force, bootlegging, or the illegal distillation and sale of alcoholic beverages, became widespread.” Khan ² .This made it harder for enforcement to catch those doing it since it was secretly operated and it was an easy way to gain money. Gatsby was also made to be seen with Meyer Wolfsheim, a guy who helped him with the illegal sale of alcohol. Meyer Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim is connected to the organized crime behind the networks of bootlegging. Contrasted to the real 1920s , Wolfshiem could be similar to the known and notorious Al Capone, who was a known gangster who profited off of the illegal sale of alcohol. Later in the book it states that, “For a moment I thought he was going to suggest a ‘gon-negtion’ but he only nodded and shook my hand” (Fitzgerald 183). This could mean that Wolfshiem is part of some type of gang and that when Gatsby was with him it starts to make readers and others wonder what he is doing to earn all this money. Bootlegging was very real and very dangerous in both the real 1920s and the Great Gatsby. As bootlegging was visible in the book and real life in the United States, the “American Dream” was also visible and relevant to those at the time.

Lastly, the book explains how capitalism and the idea of the “American Dream” affects those in the 1920s by using a character in the book to explain its effect. The “American Dream” has a huge influence on Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy plays a bigger part in living his dream. On the dock Nick says it “… distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far way. . . . When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished (Fitzgerald 24 ).Nick sees Gatsby reaching out for the green light of the dock. There are two interpretations of what this green light could be. This green light could symbolize Gatsby’s love for Daisy or the American Dream because it symbolizes money and success. The American Dream in the 1920s meant that if people could work hard doing the things they love they could make a fortune out of it. For Gatsby’s case this is similar but also different. His dream is Daisy, even though he is super rich and throws fancy parties. With Tom having an affair, it made Gatsby situated with Daisy and it made it easier to achieve his dream of her. In the end of the book it takes a turn and Gatsby dies, and his American Dream is not ruined by this, but by the fact that he was only new money and struggled giving a sense that this was an unfair world run by capitalism and the idea of the American Dream in the United States. He loved Daisy a lot and that made him careless about the principles of life. The “eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (Fitzgerald 26 ) is an interpretation that the eyes represent awareness to society, which was something Gatsby didn’t have, he wasn’t attentive to the reality of the real world. In comparison to the real world, the American Dream now seems not willing to be achieved by hard work, but by buying stocks to get that money, they just wanted the money and status. The American Dream affects Jay Gatsby negatively just like capitalism makes it seem like hard work is not enough and people will find other ways to get the money and status they want.

To conclude, the essence of the 1920s is captured by the book, The Great Gatsby , by Scott Fitzgerald by scenes of partying and carelessness along with descriptions of characters, bootlegging for people’s own gain, and how the American Dream influences characters in the book that parallels to the people of the 1920s. The readers can use these scenes to compare the book with the real era of the 1920s. It could be said that these scenes in the book don’t really depict the things that go on in the 1920s era, but the parties and Fitzgerald’s experience in this era was his influence in writing this book. His book can teach others more about the Jazz Age and the things that happened in the 1920s. What also can be learned from the Great Gatsby is that it gives a pretty good explanation about the type of lifestyles people lived and the background on different characters in the book. The last thing that people can learn about the book is how people acted during this decade and set up the Great Depression which is very important to American History.