The 1920’s is an unnecessarily romanticized period of American History. A time described by Frederick Lewis Allen as a superficial world of flirtatious women, fast cars, and flowing liquor, the twenties seemed to be years of nothing but excitement. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of American literature that captures the essence of this decade. It reflects America and its values by exemplifying the abounding loss of morality, the sense of materialism, and the period of denial which succeeded the war. Money and morals had an inverse relationship during this decade. As the glorification of the Almighty Dollar increased, morality declined. Allen’s Only Yesterday states “[In this time period] The public was in a mood
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Much like today, those of Old Money reign the social pyramid; everyone attempted to become affluent. This spawned the nouveau riche, those who became wealthy fast and had little taste. Many had a greater deal of concern with outward display of wealth rather than spending their money fruitfully, resulting in an alarming twist in reality. The Great Gatsby once again shows this when Nick Carraway, a man of New Money, encounters a strange man in Jay Gatsby’s library. The Owl-Eyed man states “[In regard to the books] They’re real...Absolutely real. Have pages and everything.” It was reality for newly affluent man like Gatsby to have a library filled with fake books. It was the facade of affluence that was coveted in the twenties. Later, Gatsby, filled with an enormous sense of materialism, flaunts his house to his married flame, Daisy Buchanan. “‘My house looks well, doesn’t it?’ he [Gatsby] demanded… In a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts… He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them…” Gatsby exemplifies this plague of materialism when by sending his shirts cascading from his closet. Materialism is yet another example of culture in the twenties and how The Great Gatsby portrays
Much like today, those of Old Money reign the social pyramid; everyone attempted to become affluent. This spawned the nouveau riche, those who became wealthy fast and had little taste. Many had a greater deal of concern with outward display of wealth rather than spending their money fruitfully, resulting in an alarming twist in reality. The Great Gatsby once again shows this when Nick Carraway, a man of New Money, encounters a strange man in Jay Gatsby’s library. The Owl-Eyed man states “[In regard to the books] They’re real...Absolutely real. Have pages and everything.” It was reality for newly affluent man like Gatsby to have a library filled with fake books. It was the facade of affluence that was coveted in the twenties. Later, Gatsby, filled with an enormous sense of materialism, flaunts his house to his married flame, Daisy Buchanan. “‘My house looks well, doesn’t it?’ he [Gatsby] demanded… In a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts… He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them…” Gatsby exemplifies this plague of materialism when by sending his shirts cascading from his closet. Materialism is yet another example of culture in the twenties and how The Great Gatsby portrays