The American Dream Portrayed In The Great Gatsby

As an American short story writer and novelist of the twentieth century F Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his literary masterpiece The Great Gatsby . In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald illustrates the Jazz Age in a profound way. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby accurately portrays the 1920’s pertaining duplicity and the pursuit of the American Dream by shedding light on the major topics such as Prohibition and gender roles of the 1920’s.

One of Fitzgerald’s ways of portraying the 1920’s is by showing one how corrupt it was during the Prohibition movement.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol in a movement known as Prohibition. It was the result of a large scale temperance movement .People who wanted to continue drinking found more innovative ways drink such as bootlegging and speakeasies. Bootlegging, which was the upsurge in the illegal production and sale of alcohol, expansion of speakeasies - illegal drinking places, and escalation of gang violence and other crime contributed to decreasing allegiance to Prohibition by the end of the 1920s.

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Women played an important role in the Temperance Movement because alcohol was thought to be the cause division in families and marriages.

In The Great Gatsby , Fitzgerald capitalizes on corruption during the Prohibition movement and the effects it had on society. At Gatsby’s house people were still trying to figure out who he was and through gossip they suggested that he might have been a Bootlegger. We find out that gatsby is a bootlegger because tom tells this to the group and say he and Wolfshiem had side-street businesses and sold alcohol over the counter.

Another one of Fitzgerald’s ways of portraying the 1920’s is by showing how it was common to be put into the category of gender roles. Flappers of the 1920s were young women known for their lively freedom taking advantage of a lifestyle seen by countless people of that time as unethical , disgraceful, or risky. Flappers broke boundaries economically, politically, and expressed sexual freedom for women. The alluring sparkling flappers dressed in a short fringy dress and wore scandalous bobs.Flappers publicly smoked,drank liquor, and danced all night at jazz clubs. Flappers broken barriers economically, politically, and sexual freedom for women. Giving women the right to vote through the 19th amendment help in the independence movement.

In The Great Gatsby ,Fitzgerald also acknowledges how people of the 1920s longed for the pursuit of The American Dream. Gatsby demonstrates a man who achieves , at least for a little while, the obvious entrapment of financial wealth, it stands to see that the empire he pictures for himself in the end failed to materialize. Gatsby was not a very smart man he wanted to obtain wealth in the absence of knowledge or wisdom. Gatsby has a broad selection of books in his library that he has left to tsundoku, getting reading materials but letting them collect dust in one's home without reading them. Jay Gatsby is most evidently thrown himself into a financial pursuit of the American Dream ,but he does this to gain the social and economic social position Daisy expects of him. His mansion is also a example of the unmindfulness of future consequences of the American Dream : that tangible prosperity ,in and of itself, will give one rank and happiness. The Mansion is the place of countless wild and glamorous parties thrown by gatsby. Nick has come to New York in pursuit of his own American Dream, one that revolves around making money in the bond market. The american dream is a strong view fascinating the lives of several of the characters even minor characters such as Meyer Wolfshiem. The East and West Egg were two interpretations of the American Dream .