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What Was The Impact Of Old Money In The Great Gatsby

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The Twenties were one of the most important eras due to the influences it had on today’s culture. There were several things that played into shaping our current society, such as the past idea of The American Dream as opposed to the current one, how Jazz affected culture, and the impacts of Old Money vs. New Money and what the differences were. During the 1920’s, there were huge impacts on time and culture. As evidenced by both Echoes of the Jazz Age and The Great Gatsby, it is clear what effects these impacts had. Wealth, The American Dream, and Jazz all played into influencing and making the Twenties such a progressive time. Wealth is one of the recurring key factors in shaping both the Twenties and today. During the 1920’s there was the …show more content…

Old Money is money that has been passed on through generations and what the majority of the characters have in The Great Gatsby. On the contrary, an example of New Money is Jay Gatsby, who had to work for his wealth and came from an impecunious background. The differences between these two opposing lifestyles could be the root of nearly all the problems in the book. Ivy Style states that The Great Gatsby is “a cautionary tale” because it deals with “the idea of money solving any or all of one’s problems” and “the harsh reality of having your dreams come true” (Ivy Style. 10/4/15). These statements prove to be true throughout the book because of all the problems money and wealth cause. Not only did Old and New Money cause difficulty in the book, it also caused setbacks during the time period. As times were progressing and ideas were shifting, some things …show more content…

Throughout The Great Gatsby, there are huge themes of The American Dream. For example, there is an ongoing motif of the green light, and one interpretation of this could be that the light symbolizes The American Dream itself. Due to the fact that Gatsby so desperately wants to achieve whatever the green light exemplifies, it could represent the longing Gatsby feels to gain happiness and wealth. This especially coincides with Fitzgerald’s idea of The American Dream because Gatsby’s materialistic dreams are part of the culture that dominated the 1920’s society. As evidenced by Fitzgerald in Echoes of the Jazz Age, wealth was very important during the Twenties. For example, he writes, “if goose-livered businessmen had this effect on the government,” which alludes to the fact that businessmen played an important role in society, “then maybe we had gone to war for J. P. Morgan’s loans after all” meaning that money almost dominated society (2). However, The American Dream has two sides, one being the emptiness and greed that can be a result of it. Gatsby’s quest for happiness, wealth, and Daisy disintegrated once greed got a hold of him. While most of the occurrences were fictional, the depiction of The American Dream was very realistic for the time period. The Twenties were all about money, power, and social status, just as today is. The idea of the

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The 1920s, also known as the “Roaring Twenties”, was an exhilarating time full of significant social, economic, and political change. For most Americans, it was full of the prosperity and peace that followed World War I. Middle-class life was full of leisure and class. For others, this time period was filled with hardships and challenges. Many immigrants and African-Americans faced discrimination and segregation from the rest of the United States. One notable, positive aspect of the 1920s was its booming economy.

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Duke Ellington and The 1920’s The most important part of the roaring 20’s would have to be the “cultural Civil War,” from the conflicting religions, Harlem renaissance, Women's rights, “the new woman,” versus the old fashioned housewife, all played a key role in the roaring twenties. At the height of the Harlem Renaissance in the late 1920s, Duke Ellington was a pioneer of a new form of jazz music that can be heard in the song “Black and Tan Fantasy.” The 1920’s were full of cultural and economic change as well as increased self expression and nightlife along with dance and the birth of jazz music. “The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar

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The essence of the 20s accumulated by the History Channel. It present the 20s in not a happy, carefree time but digs deeper into the organized crime or the political changes that occurred. The national wealth of the United States increased rapidly. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an prosperous but unfamiliar consumer society. Wealth overwhelmed the country, giving others opportunity to advertising, where the business thrived and even had people buying the same general items.

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In The Great Gatsby the characters in the novel come from various social classes. Nick, Daisy, and Tom are from Wealthy families who have been wealthy for a long time. These characters are referred to as “Old rich” because of their families’ long histories of wealth. Jay Gatsby, unlike Daisy and Tom, did not belong to a wealthy family, and he earns his wealth through his own hard work and success. Although Tom and Gatsby are both wealthy, Tom and the other “Old rich” people look down at Gatsby.

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The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway. The story took place after World War I, which make the background, setting, and costume seems unfamiliar to me. In the play, the theme “Old Money vs. New Money” is shown by how the “Old Money” such as Tom and Daisy tend to hide their wealth and already have social connection, while the “New Money”, Jay Gatsby tends to display his wealth by throwing a party at his house every week to built connection. Although Jay Gatsby live a glamorous life as a “new money,” after the party went off, he still feels lonely and unhappy. This theme can be shown by the costume design and lighting of the play.

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The 1920s was a period which is called “the roaring twenties” by historians. At that time, as a result of the economic situation in the US improved significantly, lives of ordinary Americans changed a lot. These changes can be divided into three parts. Firstly, people’s material standard of living has got a huge improvement.

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The society was divided in 2 groups: old and new money. People had got rich quick and they were trying to show how rich they are every possible time. “As year followed year of prosperity, the new diffusion of wealth brought marked results… 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” (Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday, 1931). There was a leap from 75 to 283 in the number of Americans who paid taxes on incomes of more than a million dollars a year.

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Francis Scott Fitzgerald once stated, “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly.” Throughout his famous work, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrayed the American Dream. Contrary to the ideology of the “Roaring Twenties” society, he described the American Dream as a delusion. People of the era focused on materialism in order to boost their wealth and status and forgot the importance of their relationships. Several characters within the novel sought to gain a higher status in society.

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In the 1920s, there was a division between the people who were born into money and the people who worked for it, or the “old money,” and the “new money.” While there were major differences between the two groups, they had one fundamental similarity. This was that they both lacked a sense of morality. In the Great Gatsby, the old money are portrayed as very superficial and immoral.

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The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitz Gerald embodies many themes. A major in the story is the pursuit of can be labelled the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. By having money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The Great Gatsby shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, which is a time period when the dreams became corrupted for many reasons.

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John A. Pidgeon says that, “The theme of Gatsby is the withering of the American Dream”(Pidgeon 179). The prime example of this is Gatsby, who “believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther” (Fitzgerald 180). The green light symbolizes Gatsby’s dream to be upper class with Daisy, but he can never reach it. Furthermore, it is frustrating for him that when he does attain wealth, Daisy is still out of his reach.

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The American dream states that any individual can achieve success regardless of family history, race, and/or religion simply by working hard. The 1920’s were a time of corruption and demise of moral values in society. The first World War had passed, and people were reveling in the materialism that came at the end of it, such as advanced technology and innovative inventions. The novel The Great Gatsby exploits the theme of the American Dream as it takes place in a corrupt period in history. Although the American Dream seemed more attainable than ever in the 1920’s, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby demonstrates how materialism and the demise of moral values in society leads to the corruption and impossibility of the American Dream.

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"The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream." In this quote, by Azar Nafisi, it explains how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if a person doesn’t compromise they may suffer. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is one the many themes present. The American Dream that most people in this book hope to have involves wealth, status, a fun social life, and someone to lust after. It is the life they all strive to have until they obtain it and see its meaningless composure.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the American Dream. Written in 1925, the book tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, whose main driving force in life is the pursuit of a woman called Daisy Buchanan. The narrator is Gatsby’s observant next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, who offers a fresh, outsider’s perspective on the events; the action takes place in New York during the so-called Roaring Twenties. By 1922, when The Great Gatsby takes place, the American Dream had little to do with Providence divine and a great deal to do with feelings organized around style and personal changed – and above all, with the unexamined self .

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How does the desire to pursue money and power negatively impact the characters' moral sense of right or wrong? Many people allow their social class and wealth to determine their belonging in life. In The Great Gatsby people with "old money" are more respected and superior than those with "new money". The characters' actions are driven by their desire for wealth and power.

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