Great Gatsby: the Immoral 20s
The Immoral Twenties
The 1920s gained its nickname, The Roaring Twenties from its wild and carefree lifestyle. The extensive wealth of the time filled most nights with parties, dancing, crazy antics, and illegal alcohol. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, encompassed all of the aspects listed above. Not only did the book express the exciting side of the Twenties, it also expressed lack of morality of the time. According to The Great Gatsby, this lack of morality stemmed from the focus on material items, drinking, and dreaming.
Everyone enjoys material things, whether they want a brand new car or even a phone; these items do not provide any necessity for survival, yet they make people’s lives much easier, and even more productive. However, The Great Gatsby expresses how those amenities stem the immorality present within the Roaring Twenties. Dan Cody, a wealthy business man, lived five wonderful years with Gatsby at his side. “It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died… He (Gatsby) never understood the legal device used against him, but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye” (Fitzgerald 100). Gatsby did not care about the money, he enjoyed his new life with Dan, but Ella’s envy drove her to throw away any ethics, and take the life of an innocent man. Gatsby, a seemingly moral character, used his understanding of other’s materialism to attract Daisy. He threw extravagant, wild and obscene parities at a mansion he bought “so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 78). Daisy and Gatsby loved each other five years ago, but now Daisy had a husband, Tom Buchanan; interfering by trying to renew past feelings would have been construed as adulterous. These immoralities were fueled by materialism alone, mixed with any other sources proved more than destructive.
Alcohol mixed with materialism leads to a grave ending. However,
The 1920s gained its nickname, The Roaring Twenties from its wild and carefree lifestyle. The extensive wealth of the time filled most nights with parties, dancing, crazy antics, and illegal alcohol. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, encompassed all of the aspects listed above. Not only did the book express the exciting side of the Twenties, it also expressed lack of morality of the time. According to The Great Gatsby, this lack of morality stemmed from the focus on material items, drinking, and dreaming.
Everyone enjoys material things, whether they want a brand new car or even a phone; these items do not provide any necessity for survival, yet they make people’s lives much easier, and even more productive. However, The Great Gatsby expresses how those amenities stem the immorality present within the Roaring Twenties. Dan Cody, a wealthy business man, lived five wonderful years with Gatsby at his side. “It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died… He (Gatsby) never understood the legal device used against him, but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye” (Fitzgerald 100). Gatsby did not care about the money, he enjoyed his new life with Dan, but Ella’s envy drove her to throw away any ethics, and take the life of an innocent man. Gatsby, a seemingly moral character, used his understanding of other’s materialism to attract Daisy. He threw extravagant, wild and obscene parities at a mansion he bought “so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 78). Daisy and Gatsby loved each other five years ago, but now Daisy had a husband, Tom Buchanan; interfering by trying to renew past feelings would have been construed as adulterous. These immoralities were fueled by materialism alone, mixed with any other sources proved more than destructive.
Alcohol mixed with materialism leads to a grave ending. However,
Cited: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1925. Print.