Amanda Iliadis

Ms. Maynard

ENG3UI-O4

April 2nd, 2013

The Great Gatsby: 1920s AmericaMany great authors in the history of literature have attempted to

express the view of the 1920s within their writing. There happens to be one

specific author who has achieved that accomplishment. The Great Gatsby by

F. Scott Fitzgerald has many themes illustrating America in the 1920s. The

‘Jazz Age’ was the period of time that sparked excitement and celebration

during this decade. Music, dancing, glamour, and carelessness made people

feel more alive. In the novel, Jay Gatsby holds most of the rich, expensive

parties, which signifies the extravagance of the 1920s. Men in that era were

over possessive, controlling, and sometimes even abusive. The characters;

Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are men who truly portray what men were

like in that era. Their behaviour depicts a possessive attitude towards Daisy

Buchanan, and a controlling nature towards everyone else. The behaviour of

women in this era, was completely opposite to that of men, in that they were

emotionally and physically weak. They presented themselves in a selfish,

careless, and artificial manner. In the 1920s, women caught on to the idea

that their behaviour was attractive to men, so they decided to manipulate

them by using this method to obtain whatever they wanted out of life. In the

novel, all the women including Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle

Wilson had the same qualities as if they were all raised together when they

were growing up. They always present themselves as vulnerable and

superficial to try to be more appealing. The economy was booming in the

‘Roaring 20s’. New money was being introduced, along with new rules and

inventions. In the novel, there is much controversy about wealth in West

Egg and East Egg. A major aspect had to do

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with Jay Gatsby and his relationship in the Prohibition; which only became

known two years prior to the year the novel was set. The Great Gatsby is a

perfect representation of the ‘Jazz Age’, men, women, and the economy of

1920s America.

The ‘Jazz Age’ which was introduced in 1920 and carried on for the

remainder of the decade, was a time when the parties were bigger, the pace

was faster, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper. In The Great

Gatsby everyone was either; giddy, drunk, or sleazy during the elaborate

parties in which they all attended. The ‘Great War’ was finally over and

everybody wanted to celebrate the coming of a decade filled with happiness

rather than total depression. No one bothered to care who were at the

parties, only that they had a good time. Finally, people started to regain

their wealth and popularity. The Roaring Twenties, the Boom, the ‘Jazz Age’

was a period of “wild economic prosperity, cultural flowering, and a shaking

up of social morals” (F. Scott Fitz…). Jay Gatsby holds a party every fortnight

to increase his popularity hoping that one day Daisy Buchanan will walk

through the front door. In the 1920s era, parties were constantly being held

however most people would just show up without being invited, knowing the

host, or being introduced to any of the other guests. During Gatsby’s first

party of the summer, guests would “[come] and [go] without having met

Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own

ticket for admission” (Fitzgerald, 45). The morals also became a lot looser.

People would engage in inappropriate frivolity with one another, without a

thought to who that person really was. The air always seems alive “with

chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the

spot and enthusiastic meeting[s] between women who never knew each

other’s names” (Fitzgerald, 44). One woman named Lucille at Gatsby’s party

said that she ‘likes to come… [she] never care[s] what [she] [does], so [she]

always [has] a good time” (Fitzgerald, 47). In this era, everything was more

expensive and gaudy. The rich bought everything in their reach and put out

an enormous presentation of food,

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decoration, and design into their parties to give the highest of good

impressions to their guests. Jay Gatsby arranges his home in this exact way.

He makes sure that he has servants and caterers ready every second

weekend to help him prepare his celebrations. Usually a corps of caterers

came down “with several hundred feet of canvas and enough lights to make

a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden.” (Fitzgerald, 44). Food was

also an important gesture for parties in the 1920s. Gatsby’s cooks set up

buffet tables, “garnished with glistening hors d’oeurve, spiced baked hams

crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys

bewitched to a dark gold” (Fitzgerald, 44). The ‘Jazz Age’ was thoroughly

expressed in The Great Gatsby and therefore matched perfectly to that of

America in the 1920s.

Men in 1920s America had a domineering and over-possessive

disposition towards their women which verifies that men did not treat women

right. The differences between males and females in this era is what set

them apart, causing females to flee to other, new men. In The Great Gatsby

Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby have an over-bearing possessive and

controlling demeanor. Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan and Tom is

always trying to control her. Before the prohibition act, men were much

worse because they “would often spend their money on alcohol, leaving

women with no money to provide for their children” which was completely

unfair (Teaching with…). However since the ban of alcohol, men lost their

selfish attitude and rebelled more-so causing other problems with their wives

then in the past. In the novel, Nick Carraway goes to East Egg to visit his

cousin Daisy. Tom Buchanan has the spotlight during his first introduction

which already sets the mood for his controlling and domineering personality

throughout the rest of the novel. Tom is a “sturdy…man…with a rather hard

mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes have

established dominance…a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body”

(Fitzgerald, 11). Later on, Tom and Nick go to meet Myrtle’s family at a party

she put

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together with her parents. Tom, being the prime example of a man who

loses his temper, is abusive toward Myrtle. After Myrtle repeatedly mentions

Daisy’s name, “making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her

nose with his open hand” (Fitzgerald, 41). This shows how quickly a man in

that day could lose his temper. Fitzgerald made it more descriptive when he

described the scene. There were “bloody towels upon the bathroom floor

and women’s voices scolding, and …a long broken wail of pain” (Fitzgerald,

41). Jay Gatsby is the other man in the novel who seems to really portray a

possessive and controlling behaviour. Jay Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy

Buchanan to the point of having a whole photo album full of her pictures.

However this possession continues to escalate throughout the novel to a

peak point in which he controls her future decisions. He claims “You’re not

going to take care of her anymore…Daisy’s leaving you” to Tom during their

fight in the hotel room (Fitzgerald, 140). This is when it looks like Gatsby is

losing his mind because this obsession has gone on for too long. Therefore

Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are exactly the male personas taken up by

American men during the 1920s.

Women, who were known as ‘Flappers’ in the 1920s carried

themselves in a superficial way, were sexually-free, and only cared about

their personal success. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle all

possess these characteristics which are a code to how women should have

been acting in that time period. The typical woman (or Flapper) “in

America…has always been a giddy, attractive and slightly unconventional

young thing who was a somewhat foolish girl, full of wild surmises and

inclined to revolt against the precepts and admonitions of her elders”

(Rosenburg). Daisy Buchanan talks to Nick about her and Tom’s daughter

Pammy and what she said when the nurse told her that Pammy was a girl.

She claims she is “glad it’s a girl” and she “hopes she’ll be a fool-that’s the

best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald, 21).

This shows that during the 1920s, women were always classified as fools

because of their behaviour and attitude towards others. They put

themselves into that category and

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therefore the children being born into the 20s were going to fall into that

category as well. Later on in the novel, Nick describes how Myrtle Wilson

completely ignores her husband George to see Tom Buchanan…the man

involved in her affair. Nick describes it that “she smiles slowly and walking

through her husband as if he were a ghost [shakes] hands with Tom…

wet[ing] her lips” (Fitzgerald, 30). Another example of a woman who is

careless is Jordan Baker. She and Nick were at Gatsby’s party and as with all

the other women, she rather partake in inappropriate things. Once it is

midnight, she wants to “get out” because “this is too polite for [her]”

(Fitzgerald, 49). There is another woman at the party with whom Jordan and

Nick sit with at the table. She is “a rowdy little girl who gave way upon the

slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter” (Fitzgerald, 51). In actual

fact, the message Fitzgerald is trying to get across is that this girl is drunk

not just a girl who loved to laugh. She is not even a ‘little girl’. However she

is a woman depicted as a little girl because of her uncontrollable laughter

and childish disposition. Women were illustrated as naïve, young,

impressionable fools in the 1920s. Women in The Great Gatsby are a precise

translation of women from America in the 1920s.

America in the 1920s was a very prosperous time when new rules and

inventions were coming into motion including; new cars, new money, and the

Prohibition. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby drives a Rolls-Royce which was

an extremely fashionable car at that time. He is also involved in the

smuggling of alcohol during the Prohibition. The 1920s were ruled by

“fashions and fads…of the youthful glow of America. During this time

prohibition was instituted, and prohibition was ineffective. Everything about

the 1920s symbolized an intense feeling of rebellion and breaking away from

society’s boundaries. The 1920s was simply an explosion of self-expression,

the automobile being one of the biggest” (Smiley). There is a huge contrast

between West Egg and East Egg in Long Island which showed the contrast of

old money versus new money during the decade. West Egg was “the less

fashionable of the two” which refers

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to the old money (Fitzgerald, 9). However across the bay “the white palaces

of fashionable East Egg” stood as the new money (Fitzgerald, 10). There is

contrast between West and East Egg, and the Valley of Ashes being as the

Valley-depicted as a large, grungy, garbage site- is completely different than

the wealthy Eggs. The Valley of Ashes is described as being “about halfway

between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad…

away from a desolate area of land” (Fitzgerald, 27). Fitzgerald continues by

saying it is a “farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and

grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and

rising smoke…crumbling through the powdery air” (Fitzgerald, 27). The

Prohibition which lasted from 1920 to October of 1929 banned the sale,

transportation and manufacture of alcohol in America. In The Great Gatsby,

Gatsby is involved with the smuggling of alcohol, therefore he was known as

a bootlegger. This is how he gained his wealth in the novel. Near the climax

of the novel, Tom Buchanan tells Jordan, Nick and Daisy that “Gatsby and…

Wolfshiem brought up a lot of side-street drug stores… in Chicago and sold

grain alcohol over the counter” (Fitzgerald, 41).New Cars were a huge part of

the growing prosperity of the era. Jay Gatsby owns a new car model called

the Rolls-Royce which happened to become very popular for wealthy people

to own in the 1920s. It is described as a “rich cream colour, bright in nickel,

swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes,

and super-boxes, and tool-boxes and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields

that mirrored a dozen suns” (Fitzgerald, 68). During the 1920s in America, a

lot of new ideas were becoming materialistic possessions and were coming

to life along with the Prohibition Act. All of which were presently happening

in The Great Gatsby.

In The Great Gatsby there are many elements that bring 1920s

America to life including the ‘Jazz Age’, men, women, and the economy. The

‘Jazz Age’ made the 1920s the best decade for people to be living through if

they were alive at that time. It was fun, exciting, and risqué for both men

and women and

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was time for dancing, drinking, and letting loose. In the novel, Gatsby holds

many parties, each of them signifying the rich, overdone life in the 20s.

Men, who like women, went “on a spree and [made] a fool of [themselves],

were the complete opposite of women because of their over-controlling

manner (Fitzgerald, 138). Tom admitted to going on frequent sprees and it’s

quite possible that other men in the novel have done the same. Women in

the 1920s were completely artificial and had barely any self-respect. This

led them to cheat on their husbands, to act careless, and to try to amount to

something through their wealth. Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle all act careless,

and all have an artificial attitude which they thought was attractive. The

1920s was a time for innovations and rules, two of which were the Rolls-

Royce and the Prohibition. People had new money and became wealthy

through smuggling alcohol, working in bonds, or business type fields. Nick

Carraway worked in the bonds industry, Tom Buchanan worked in more of a

business environment, and Jay Gatsby smuggled alcohol. The 1920s has

taught the world a lot of useful things. Without the progress that the 1920s

made, the future currently being lived would have been altered.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Frances Scott. The Great Gatsby. Toronto: Scott & Schuster, 1991.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age.” Shmoop: we speak student. Web. March 26, 2013.

<www.shmoop.com/f-scott-fitzgerald/jazz-age.html>

Rosenburg, Jennifer. “Flappers in the Roaring Twenties.” About.com: 20th Century History. Web. March

26, 2013.

<www.history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.html>

Smiley, Gene. “The U.S. Economy in the 1920s.” EH.net. Feb 1, 2020. Web. March 26, 2013.

<www.eh.net/encyclopedia/article/smiley.1920s.final>

“Teaching With Documents: The Volstead Act and Related Prohibition Documents.” National Archives.

<www.archives.gov.education/lessons/volstead-act/>

Amanda Iliadis