Moral Decay In The Great Gatsby

In the famous novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald exhibits the beliefs and experiences of his own life in the 1920s, which also still have impact today. History.com states, “The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed.” Fitzgerald was a prominent author during this time due to his famous novel The Great Gatsby. In his works, he illustrated events in his own life and related them to the characters in his books. Growing up poor, Fitzgerald experienced both sides of the social spectrum, going from a poor family in his youth to a wealthy writer in his adulthood.. He worked his way up to the upper class, gaining love from his …show more content…
They have significant power due to their amount of money and economic class standing. They are held to an unspoken standard because of their riches, but they do not live up to it because they are normal human beings. Their faults and successes are magnified from their fame in the spotlight. Fitzgerald uses this concept of moral decay, or behavior reflecting poorly on yourself, multiple times in The Great Gatsby. The audience is fond of Gatsby and he is a likeable character, but he is involved in a hit and run, and his credibility with the audience diminishes. They start to lose their fondness for Gatsby even though he takes the blame for Daisy. Fitzgerald uses his writing to knock the audience into reality, and Gatsby’s charm begins to decrease. Tiger Woods exemplifies moral decay in today’s society. Being a professional athlete, he’s in the spotlight a lot. Woods lost many fans after his cheating scandal and divorce from Ellin Nordgren. Not only did his fan base drop, but so did his game. The backlash he received threw off his golfing. If he was not a celebrity, Woods would be among the millions of people that get away with cheating on their spouse every day. Woods was a role model to so many people, but his poor decision ruined his integrity, which represents moral