The Great Gatsby Cultural Analysis Essay

Cultural studies are widely recognized for its diverse perspective it contributes to analyzing our world, but more specifically, it bestows insight onto the literature we consume. The term was coined by Raymond Williams, who used it to describe a theoretical blending of leftist culturalism and Marxist analysis (Prendergast 1995). Nevertheless, it is most commonly known for the great strides Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield made in 1985 (Barry 2009). It is through cultural studies, also known as cultural materialism, that it explore a perspective that allows readers to view literature through a new lens of critical thinking which can be applied to “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald when one examines the concept of military service during the time period of World War 1, as well as organized crime.
Lois Tyson has said for critics who specialize in this field of study, culture is a process, not a product; it is a lived experience, not a fixed definition. More precisely, a culture is a collection of interactive cultures, each of which is growing and changing, each of which is constituted at any given moment in time by the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic
The 1920s in America are commonly known for its prosperity and way of life for people during this time. It was a lifestyle where people had extra money, a stable lifestyle after the labor market rose following the war, and people began to become accustomed to leisure time (Currell 2009). Nevertheless, to properly comprehend that vastness of the novel, “The Great Gatsby”, it is important to consider the events that had recently occurred impacting the world at large, World War 1, and the impacts it created for specific characters in the novel which can be examined through a lens of a cultural theory