Essay About Great Gatsby And Booming Parties

Great GatsbyGreat GatsbyThe 1920s is the decade in American history known as the “roaring twenties.” Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of life in the 1920s. Booming parties, prominence, fresh fashion trends, and the excess of alcohol are all aspects of life in the “roaring twenties.”

The booming parties in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby reflect life in America during the 1920s. Gatsby displays his prominent fortune by throwing grand parties. From next door, Nick Carraway witnesses the scene of Gatsby’s fabulous summer parties:

There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and women came and went like moths among the whisperings of champagne and the stars…On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all the trains (Fitzgerald 43).

Gatsby’s house illuminates, the jazz music blares for the entire town to hear, the bubbly is served, and the guests dance until one A.M. The parties are “roaring.” Gatsby’s parties display the way Americans socialized and the lifestyle they lived during the 1920s when “Americans danced to the decades joyous music at a frantic and accelerating pace…Americans began to improvise leisure time activities that had no purpose other than having fun. People roared through the decade intent on enjoying every exciting moment of it…”(Nash 370). Life in the twenties consisted of fun, fun, and fun. Americans partied like there was no tomorrow. Gatsby’s parties reflect the way society partied in the 1920s. Americans threw expensive never-ending galas. One result from the grand parties and riches was the gain in fame.

”(Hilton 5)‡

There’s a lot of controversy about whether or not it was actually a party. In a recent article for New York magazine, Mark Davenport asks:

“Was it a party like this in any way, shape or form before the 1920s? Was it a party like the ’30s and ’40s in any way, shape or form before that?  For both, which two?”

That question seems a reasonable question. But I find it quite fascinating that the answer isn’t even completely “yes” or “no.”

I did say that my guess is that it might be both. Gatsby’s parties are certainly part of the “new America” today, but it makes for an interesting book, so I guess I’ll try to answer that question, too.

”(Chicago Review of Books)

Davenport’s article ends there, saying:

“The 1920s’ party scene is full of new forms and more people, but there’s very little talk about how these new forms became parties in the 1920s. (Gatsby “)s experience of having to live under party rules was the start of the emergence of New York Party.”

I wonder which side Gatsby’s view is more correct—one, that they made a point of maintaining the parties of the past, or one, that those parties are just plain old entertainment, and I wish they had been a party once in their lives, and that they had. Or, I guess, they did get a good deal of money for it…

More info on the Gatsby’s party scene would be in the article, but I suspect that’s too close to call. (I’ve put up a copy of the paper at Gatsby’s blog because it’s really amazing.)

Gatsby’s party scenes in the 19th century were mainly about parties in a town or country where there was money, social interaction, beer and cocktails—the latter mostly for the old.  There was an early form of party—a ’50s-style, traditional party, held in a bar, like at a party, where all members dressed in whatever suits their mood.  Members of the band played their favorite songs.  The bar was known for “party dancing”—or, as a term came to be defined in the 1920s, the party dance—to the amusement of the masses.  It wasn’t that party people seemed to revel in the spectacle. It was they were fun to party together.  They were more than merely a party—it was the embodiment of the New Age and New American ethos that they embodied—and that’s what it is all about.