Culture's Influence on the Great Gatsby Essay Example
Tamarine Vilar
Culture’s Influence on The Great Gatsby
At the time F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, culture had a strong influence on the way he developed his characters. In the twenties, the pseudo future promised prosperity and that encouraged decadence, wantonness, and the abandonment of values to make those pursuits. Society focused on the accumulation of wealth, spending money, using/abusing power and having a good time. This culture dictated how people acted, reacted and thought about others. It was about this same time period that Freud had proposed his theories. This same culture that affected literature had a similar influence on Freud’s theories. Freud maintained that human sexuality and how one treats the opposite sex is part of human nature. That is why the Freudian philosophy appears to apply so well, The Great Gatsby and Freud’s theories both stemmed from the same root, the culture of the twenties. The Feminist response maintained that it was culture, including literature, which propagandized people. “Feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature reinforces the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of women.”[1] These polarized opinions of Freudian psychology vs. Feminist Criticism come into play in The Great Gatsby. The Feminist response believes nurture (culture) influences people whereas Freud’s theory believes it is due to human nature. The Feminist response says that literature reflects the culture of that time rather than reflecting human nature in general. We need to put ourselves in that culture in order to compare Fitzgerald’s work with these theories to see if and how they apply. The Suffragette movement was in full swing. Women had previously been subjugated and treated like chattel but now they were coming forward. However, men were still in control. The Freudian philosophy maintained that men have the power and have
Culture’s Influence on The Great Gatsby
At the time F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, culture had a strong influence on the way he developed his characters. In the twenties, the pseudo future promised prosperity and that encouraged decadence, wantonness, and the abandonment of values to make those pursuits. Society focused on the accumulation of wealth, spending money, using/abusing power and having a good time. This culture dictated how people acted, reacted and thought about others. It was about this same time period that Freud had proposed his theories. This same culture that affected literature had a similar influence on Freud’s theories. Freud maintained that human sexuality and how one treats the opposite sex is part of human nature. That is why the Freudian philosophy appears to apply so well, The Great Gatsby and Freud’s theories both stemmed from the same root, the culture of the twenties. The Feminist response maintained that it was culture, including literature, which propagandized people. “Feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature reinforces the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of women.”[1] These polarized opinions of Freudian psychology vs. Feminist Criticism come into play in The Great Gatsby. The Feminist response believes nurture (culture) influences people whereas Freud’s theory believes it is due to human nature. The Feminist response says that literature reflects the culture of that time rather than reflecting human nature in general. We need to put ourselves in that culture in order to compare Fitzgerald’s work with these theories to see if and how they apply. The Suffragette movement was in full swing. Women had previously been subjugated and treated like chattel but now they were coming forward. However, men were still in control. The Freudian philosophy maintained that men have the power and have