Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cars In The 1920s

While on a beautiful Sunday drive home from Maine, one may find his/herself flying down the highway towards Massachusetts. It makes the trip a lot faster, and as kids, nothing is better than staring out that window and watching all of the beautiful trees, fields, and animals disappear within the blink of the eye. However, when the kid wants to poke his/her head out of the car and take a closer look at a tree, they would find its many imperfections and flaws. That mysterious flash right outside of the window? That’s roadkill. This same concept can be applied to life in the 1920s, which, when flying by, seemed like a fantastic time. However, while the blurry exterior of the 1920s portrayed a polished society where dreams were fully realized,

To begin, when the first automobile introduced by Ford Motor Company was released, America was ecstatic; a horseless carriage had never been seen before. This newfangled carriage would improve life for many immediately in many ways for most. For example, it simply made travel far easier, and visiting relatives and loved ones became incredibly easy. Complete freedom was now a large step closer. However, this newfound freedom was not without its drawbacks. Primarily, it is both a large blessing and a curse that cars were really introduced at this time, as they are a perfect supplementary good for the times, good and bad. Sure, they perfectly captured the idea of a careless and free population, and moved people from one place to another with incredible speed. However, when mixed with a different type of fuel, these machines became death traps and public hazards. That other fuel, the fuel of the times, is alcohol, which undoubtedly kept people moving and making careless decision after careless decision. So, when someone has just been at a party for the whole night, filled nearly to the brim with booze, and they get in their car and drive home, alarms had better be going off because that is not good. In the year 1924, a spike in deaths caused by car accidents occurred, and went up 18 percent to 26,000 deaths, which the majority of

In the novel, Nick dreams of a life in New York City, where he can get away from his boring, structured, Midwestern life. To do this, he will pursue a profession of being a stockbroker (or in his words, a “bond man), where he will strike it rich on Wall Street, and live without worries. His dreams seem affirmed after meeting Jay Gatsby, his next door neighbor, who lives like a king, giving Nick some hope. Gatsby provides Nick with the careless lifestyle that Nick was looking for, and couldn’t get enough of it. However, after the multitude of events that occur in relation to Gatsby and his company, Nick decides that this life is not for him, and decides to go back out West for more structure: “After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home" (Fitzgerald, 196). This is a perfect representation of the shiny and failed dream that Nick had for New York. Nick thought that he was living the dream of New York, and thought that the people there were living life correctly. However, that could not be further from the truth, and he realized that their way of life was not safe to sustain (“distorted beyond the eyes’ power of