Essay About Great Gatsby And Western United States

The Great Gatsby
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Great Gatsby
The great gatsby and the fall of the american dream.
The book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was an icon of its
time. The book discusses topics that were important, controversial and
interesting back in 1920s America. The novel is an exploration of the
American Dream as it exists in a corrupt period of history. The main
themes in the book are the decay of morals and values and the
frustration of a modern society. The Great Gatsby describes the decay
of the American Dream and the want for money and materialism. This
novel also describes the gap between the rich and the poor (Gatsby and
the Wilsons, West Egg and the Valley of the Ashes) by comparing the
differences between the Western United States (traditional western
culture) and the Eastern United States (money obsessed values). On a
smaller scale this could be seen as the difference between the West Egg
(the new, money) and the East egg (the old money). The 1920s were
a time of corruption and the degradation of moral values for the United
States and many other countries. World War One had just ended and
people were reveling in the materialism that came with the end of it,
new mass produced commodities such as motor cars and radios were
filling peoples driveways and houses, money was more accessible
(before the Great Depression). Cars were becoming a social symbol in
the 1920s as we can see with Gatsbys five cars, one of which he gives
to Nick and one of which kills Myrtle Wilson later on in the novel.
Herbert Hoover (an American President) said in 1925 “We will root out
poverty and put two cars in every garage.” The parties that Gatsby held
every week in the summer were a symbol of the carelessness of the time.
Gatsby would hide in the house while the guests, most of whom were
not even invited, would party, eat and drink until the early hours of
the morning without even meeting the guest or even knowing who he was.
People would turn up just to be seen or reported in the local
newspapers “In his blue garden people came and went like moths among
the whisperings and the champagne.” This shows the carelessness of the
guests. Another quote about the parties refers to the way the guests
devour the endless supply of food and never give a thought as to who
gave it to them. “Every Friday five crates of oranges and Lemons
arrived from a fruiterer In New York- Every Monday these same oranges
and lemons left his backdoor in a pyramid of pulpless halves.” This is
also a symbol; it relates the pulpless halves to the rather empty
guests, soulless people obsessed by image and wealth, a corruption of
the American Dream. Another sign of the fall of the American Dream in
The Great Gatsby is the way Gatsby makes his money. Gatsby gets his
fortune through the illegal sale of alcohol (bootlegging). The sale
of alcohol was prohibited in the United States in the 1920s. Gatsby
came from the western United States where there was old money. There
he met Dan Cody who taught him how to bootleg. As Gatsby became
richer he moved to West Egg in New York. Gatsbys house is a rather
artificial place, the house was originally built to impress Daisy with
his so-called wealth, and this is a sign of a corrupt way of winning
love through money and wealth. Gatsbys house is furnished well with
old looking ornaments and (probably) second hand antiques, Gatsbys
house also has a library which is full of uncut literature. The
conversation between Jordan and an unnamed man at one of Gatsbys
parties talks about the books: “Absolutely real – have real pages and
everything. Id thought theyd be a nice durable cardboard.” These
books and antiques are just Gatsbys way of showing off his wealth to
others, however Gatsby doesnt really care for materialism, we can tell
this because his bedroom, the only room he really ever uses, is empty
compared to the