How Does Gatsby Reflect the 1920’s? The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story that mirrors the extravagant 1920’s and all of it’s wild lifestyle. The Great Gatsby begins in the spring of 1922. It follows the life of Jay Gatsby, who transformed his life from “rags to riches” as he tries to win back the love of his life by throwing parties all summer in the hopes she will show up. During this time based on the bestseller Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen, men and women were trying to find an escape from “The Great war” and the crumbling economy. Their escapes included “speed, excitement, and passion”. The Great Gatsby reflects America in the 1920’s in three significant ways which include: showing how men and women escaped the war …show more content…
The bestseller Only yesterday talks about how men and women were affected by the war. “When the whole ordeal was over…. Their torn nerves craved…. speed, excitement, and passion”(document A). In The Great Gatsby one of the scenes throughout the story describes one of the parties Gatsby was throwing. “The bar was in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten and the spot, and enthusiastic meeting between women who never knew each other’s names…”(document B). These two excerpts reflect each other because all everyone wanted to do in the 1920’s was to have a good time and forget about everything bad, and in The Great Gatsby Gatsby is the answer to that problem with his luxurious and fulfilling …show more content…
In Only Yesterday it stated that many were becoming rich and wanted to buy things just to help them fit into society. “There was an epidemic of outlines of knowledge and books of etiquette for those who had got rich quick and wanted to get cultured, quick and become socially at ease”(Document C). In The Great Gatsby, the narrator Nick is looking for Gatsby, but instead finds another man with “enormous owl eyed-spectacles”. ““What do you Think” he demanded impetuously. “About what?” He waved his hand toward the book-shelves. “About that… They’re real.””(Document D). These quotes show how The Great Gatsby reflected the 1920’s by showing how an ordinary man couldn’t even believe that Gatsby’s book collection was real when in the 1920’s the rich were buying many things including books to fulfill their desire for more of