The Great Gatsby's Life

The Great War, which took place from 1914 to 1918, exposed the world to brutality and horrors that it had never before seen. As a result of the upheaval of the war, a generation of young men and women were suddenly freed from the social constraints of the previous decades; as a result, they went mad with freedom and new ideas. A decade of partying, loose morals, crazed dancing, and ever-changing fashions entered the American life-- a decade that confounded the older generation, and fascinated novelists. One of most well-known writers of this period is F. Scott Fitzgerald, who both observed these times with a writer’s eye and lived them with abandon. Perhaps because the entire mood of the decade was one of living in the moment, Fitzgerald used …show more content…
The novel centers around the mysterious Jay Gatsby, whose life’s goal is to win the heart of the girl who rejected him for lack of money. This mirrors the reality of Fitzgerald’s life; however, despite being the protagonist, Gatsby is far from the hero. In fact, each of the wealthy characters in the novel are shown to be corrupted by their wealth; each of them live only for their own gratification. When Daisy, Gatsby’s love, hits a woman with an automobile, she does not pause to see the harm she has caused. Instead, she runs away, and eventually leaves the country with her husband, easily avoiding any moral responsibility (Fitzgerald 154). This, to Fitzgerald 's view, encompassed the attitude of the rich toward their actions: they took no responsibility for them. Throughout his novel, Fitzgerald repeatedly demonstrates the twisted morality and evasion of consequences in the era he detailed so …show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald was deeply influenced both by his personal life and by the times to write The Great Gatsby as both a narrative of the times and a critique of the upper class morality; this effort led to mixed criticism. His early life was shaped by failure, which drove him to succeed, and led to his tumultuous marriage with Zelda. He was inspired by this failure, as well as by the rapidly changing times, to write The Great Gatsby, in which he demonstrated the lack of morality among the upper class of the time period. This novel was received by critics with praise for its style and hatred for its characters, which some argued showed the very inexcusability of their actions. Ultimately, Fitzgerald masterfully weaves the magic of the decade into a depiction of the twisted morals of the time, which is an applicable warning in modern times. Clearly, Fitzgerald belongs among the great writers of the twentieth