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The Great Gatsby Roaring 20's Analysis

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The Great Gatsby Roaring 20's Analysis
During the early 1900’s, there was a decade of endless partying, drinking, swinging, and full-on hedonism known as the “Roaring 20’s”. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tackles the views that many people hold about about the 20’s and shows them to be gloomy, wistful, and tainted by people’s own memories. For example, despite the fact that the “Roaring 20’s” were seen as glamorous, Nick’s description paints a gloomy tone by portraying the Valley of Ashes as filled with miserable people in a troubled place. Nick applies the setting as dim and dark to emphasize the Valley of Ashes’ gloominess during the “Roaring 20’s”. For instance, he emphasizes the valley’s inhabitants as “men who moved dimly and already crumbling through …show more content…
Nick presents Gatsby yearning for something he has lost, which contradicts the idea of hedonism. For instance, after hearing about his past, Nick notices that GAtsby “wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy” (110), which shows how Gatsby’s nostalgia troubles and betrays him as he dreams of reclaiming something he simply can’t obtain. In addition, Gatsby’s life is shown to be hazy and disjointed because he “had been confused and disordered [since first meeting Daisy], but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was [was missing]” (110). This passage shows how, despite Gatsby's accomplishments, he is disappointed by how his life has played out and wishes for a second “slower” chance to discover whas he lost because without it, he is lost. Nick shows how muddled Gatsby’s life is by describing it as “confused”, “disordered”, and noting that he wants to “find out what was missing” which clearly shows that after loving Daisy, his life has never been the same and he wishes to be how he was before. Despite the fact that the “Roaring 20’s” were seen as nothing short of astounding and carefree, Nick’s description of Gatsby’s own life portrays it as incredibly wistful and

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