Fitzgerald
Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel,
The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 !i"e Fitzgerald, #i$" %arra&ay is a thoughtful
young man from Minnesota, edu$ated at an 'vy !eague s$hool (in #i$"’s $ase, )ale*,
&ho moves to #e& )or" after the &ar +lso similar to Fitzgerald is ,ay Gatsby, a
sensitive young man &ho idolizes &ealth and lu-ury and &ho falls in love &ith a
beautiful young &oman &hile stationed at a military $amp in the .outh
.imilarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of &ealth at a relatively young age, and
devotes himself to a$/uiring possessions and thro&ing parties that he believes &ill
enable him to &in 0aisy’s love 1e published Tender 's the #ight in 1923, and sold
short stories to The .aturday 4vening 5ost to support his lavish lifestyle 'n 1926, he
left for 1olly&ood to &rite s$reenplays, and in 1937, &hile &or"ing on his novel The
!ove of the !ast Ty$oon, died of a heart atta$" at the age of forty8four
Fitzgerald &as the most famous $hroni$ler of 1927s +meri$a, an era that he dubbed
9the ,azz +ge: ;ritten in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary
do$uments of this period, in &hi$h the +meri$an e$onomy soared, bringing
unpre$edented levels of prosperity to the nation 5rohibition, the ban on the sale and
$onsumption of al$ohol mandated by the 4ighteenth +mendment to the %onstitution
(1919*, made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground $ulture of revelry
sprang up .pra&ling private parties managed to elude poli$e noti$e, and
9spea"easies:<se$ret $lubs that sold li/uor<thrived The $haos and violen$e of
;orld ;ar ' left +meri$a in a state of sho$", and the generation that fought the &ar
turned to &ild and e-travagant living to $ompensate The staid $onservatism and
time&orn values of the previous de$ade &ere turned on their ear, as money,
opulen$e, and e-uberan$e be$ame the order of the day
!i"e #i$" in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this ne& lifestyle sedu$tive and
e-$iting, and, li"e Gatsby, he had al&ays idolized the very ri$h #o& he found himself
in an era in &hi$h unrestrained materialism set the tone of so$iety, parti$ularly in the
large $ities of the 4ast 4ven so, li"e #i$", Fitzgerald sa& through the glitter of the
,azz +ge to the moral emptiness and hypo$risy beneath, and part of him longed for
this absent moral $enter 'n many &ays, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald’s
attempt to $onfront his $onfli$ting feelings about the ,azz +ge !i"e Gatsby,
Fitzgerald &as driven by his love for a &oman &ho symbolized everything he
&anted, even as she led him to&ard everything he despised
Fitzgerald portrays the 1927s as an era of de$ayed so$ial and moral values,
eviden$ed in its overar$hing $yni$ism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure The
re$"less =ubilan$e that led to de$adent parties and &ild =azz musi$<epitomized in
The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby thro&s every .aturday night<
resulted ultimately in the $orruption of the +meri$an dream, as the unrestrained
desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals ;hen ;orld ;ar '
ended in 191>, the generation of young +meri$ans &ho had fought the &ar be$ame
intensely disillusioned, as the brutal $arnage that they had =ust fa$ed made the
?i$torian so$ial morality of early8t&entieth8$entury +meri$a seem li"e stuffy, empty
hypo$risy The dizzying rise of the sto$" mar"et in the aftermath of the &ar led to a
sudden, sustained in$rease in the national &ealth and a ne&found materialism, as
people began to spend and $onsume at unpre$edented levels + person from any
so$ial ba$"ground $ould, potentially, ma"e a fortune, but the +meri$an aristo$ra$y<
families &ith old &ealth<s$orned the ne&ly ri$h industrialists and spe$ulators
+dditionally, the passage of the 4ighteenth +mendment in 1919, &hi$h banned the
sale of al$ohol, $reated a thriving under&orld designed to satisfy the massive
demand for bootleg li/uor among ri$h and poor ali"e
Fitzgerald positions the $hara$ters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these so$ial
trends #i$" and Gatsby, both of &hom fought in ;orld ;ar ', e-hibit the ne&found
$osmopolitanism and $yni$ism that resulted from the &ar The various so$ial
$limbers and ambitious spe$ulators &ho attend Gatsby’s parties eviden$e the greedy
s$ramble for &ealth The $lash bet&een 9old money: and 9ne& money: manifests
itself in the novel’s symboli$ geography@ 4ast 4gg represents the established
aristo$ra$y, ;est 4gg the self8made ri$h Meyer ;olfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune
symbolize the rise of organized $rime and bootlegging
+s Fitzgerald sa& it (and as #i$" e-plains in %hapter 9*, the +meri$an dream &as
originally about dis$overy, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness 'n the 1927s
depi$ted in the novel, ho&ever, easy money and rela-ed so$ial values have
$orrupted this dream, espe$ially on the 4ast %oast The main plotline of the novel
refle$ts this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving 0aisy is ruined by the
differen$e in their respe$tive so$ial statuses, his resorting to $rime to ma"e enough
money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that $hara$terizes her lifestyle
+dditionally, pla$es and ob=e$ts in The Great Gatsby have meaning only be$ause
$hara$ters instill them &ith meaning@ the eyes of 0o$tor T , 4$"leburg best
e-emplify this idea 'n #i$"’s mind, the ability to $reate meaningful symbols
$onstitutes a $entral $omponent of the +meri$an dream, as early +meri$ans invested
their ne& nation &ith their o&n ideals and values
#i$" $ompares the green bul" of +meri$a rising from the o$ean to the green light at
the end of 0aisy’s do$" ,ust as +meri$ans have given +meri$a meaning through
their dreams for their o&n lives, Gatsby instills 0aisy &ith a "ind of idealized
perfe$tion that she neither deserves nor possesses Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the
un&orthiness of its ob=e$t, =ust as the +meri$an dream in the 1927s is ruined by the
un&orthiness of its ob=e$t<money and pleasure !i"e 1927s +meri$ans in general,
fruitlessly see"ing a bygone era in &hi$h their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re8
$reate a vanished past<his time in !ouisville &ith 0aisy<but is in$apable of doing
so ;hen his dream $rumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is dieA all #i$" $an do is
move ba$" to Minnesota, &here +meri$an values have not de$ayed