Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby Analysis

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Be thankful for what you have; you 'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don 't have, you will never, ever have enough.” The Jazz Age of the roaring 1920s was a time of economic success and dramatic social change. Although the Jazz Age seems spontaneous with cultural advancement and the introduction of modernism, the Jazz Age still left individuals feeling unsatisfied with their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses his characters from his third novel, The Great Gatsby, to describe how people will always feel unhappy with their lives even in times of unmatched prosperity. The American novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates how his fictional characters face disillusionment in …show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald writes disillusionment in his character’s lives by creating dramatic back stories. By way of example before Jay Gatsby lived fabulously wealthy in West Egg, his past faced hardships of poverty, illegal business, and lying. “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself…he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald 98). Jay did not simply inherit his wealth from his dead family; Jay participated in illegal distribution of illegal alcohol and trading stolen securities in order to be worth millions. At first, Jay lied to Nick saying, “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West – all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition” (Fitzgerald 65). Jay is not the Oxford man that he tells everyone he is. Jay was only able to go to Oxford due to his service in the army. Eventually Jay’s history of criminal activity has been exposed by Tom, he said, “[Jay] and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time …show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald writes how his fictional characters face disillusionment in their lives with their love lives, social status, and personal past lives in The Great Gatsby. Typical people of the 21st century still face disillusionments in their everyday lives today as they did in the roaring 1920s. Society needs to learn how to be thankful for what they already have and not take our blessings for granted. In the world, there will always be people who are living in unfortunate circumstances that dream of living an ordinary life. We need to keep the people who have it worse in our minds to be grateful that we woke up this morning with a heartbeat. As we express our gratitude, we are a step closer to a more optimistic mindset of our lives that will lead us to live a life without