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Examples Of Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby

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Flappers, jazz, and illegal booze together create the trinity of chaos that is the roaring twenties. F. Scott Fitsgerald’s The Great Gatsby is set in the money, love, and party rush of the 1920s, where, after the war, God is no where to be found, and everyone’s true love is short dresses and alcohol. The Great Gatsby portrays several characteristics and struggles of the 1920s as described in Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen, which includes post war disillusionment, the upcoming of the nouveau riche, and business replacing God.
The first wave of change throughout the nation during the 1920s was post war disillusionment. Disillusionment is defined as the loss of ones morals and values or a loss of faith. This can be seen after the war in American culture, as exemplified in The Great Gatsby. As Allen stated in Only Yesterday “... when the ordeal was over...” meaning; war, the people’s “... torn nerves craved... speed, excitement and passion...” and people found this in defying the law by drinking alcohol, wearing short dresses and breaking every ethical law they had created for themselves. These acts of civil rebellion broke barriers in society and, the new normal became the simple “... few drinks... a kick out of physical passion...” just so they could “... forget …show more content…
He brings to the table America’s loss of true religious bounds. The America that once used God as a way to make every decision, and a way to hope for things unseen, now believes only in the paper money in each mans pocket and the hefty Gold standard backing it up. There were several years in which the American people both men and women were as stated by Allen disenchanted by “... politics... religion and love...”. Living their lives with the naive notion that “... at the end of the rainbow...” there was “... a pot of negotiable legal tender...” which was an answer to a prayer from a God they no longer believed

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