Materialism Great Gatsby

The Jazz Age was a period of great economic, social, and political change happening in the 1920’s. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, however, portrays the 1920’s as a time of wreckage and urban decimation. The Great Gatsby is modeled towards the death of the American dream during the 1920’s, and based on the happenings of the 1920’s, this model is certainly reasonable. F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby use the motifs of materialism, carelessness, and decay seen in the 1920’s in order to show a destruction of the American Dream. Throughout The Great Gatsby it is very easy to recognize how the time period affected the author 's point of view, one of the motifs that is affected by the time period is materialism. During the 1920’s

Carelessness in the 1920’s was a matter of convenience for the American population. As a number of new inventions came out such as birth control mechanisms, carelessness shifted from a negative to a common way of life ("The Roaring Twenties"). Jazz music was also given a negative connotation in this time period. Some people described it as vulgar, and believed that it caused many moral disasters involving the carelessness of those who listened to it ("The Roaring Twenties"). In The Great Gatsby carelessness can be seen in the way people treat others. Daisy’s attitude with her daughter, whom she undoubtedly had under careless circumstances, has a sickening stench of disregard for human life. “With a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined child held to her nurse’s hand and was pulled out the door” (117). Daisy brings out her daughter only to show her off to Gatsby, and once her mission is complete, Pammy is to be sent back to her confinement with the nurse. Such lack of respect for human life is also shown when Daisy is to choose between hitting the car, creating minimal damages to human life, and hitting Myrtle, causing a definite destruction of human life. Daisy is careless in the manner with which she takes a life, and continues her own without regard. The carelessness as described in The Great Gatsby correlates to the destruction of the

One characteristic of decay in the 1920’s is the so called Flapper women. Flapper women are unlady like women who smoke, drink, and speak profanity ("The Roaring Twenties"). The decay of the American women is seen in The Great Gatsby in the form of Myrtle. Myrtle is a woman who cheats on her husband for a higher status male like Tom. The comparison is most easily seen with Myrtle’s dead body. “A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting-before he could move from his door the business was over (…) They saw her left breast was swinging loose, like a flap” (137). Myrtle’s dead body shows the death of the polite and chivalrous woman, and the imagery of her lifeless breast is the decayed version of the new breast of America when it was first discovered. The decay during the time period of the 1920’s is also depicted in Dan Cody, the combination between Buffalo Bill Cody and Daniel Boone in his name shows the contrast between a man who helped explore the new land, and a mock character celebrated in the 1920’s. Dan Cody illustrates the American Dream in the form of these two contrasting characters, his death illustrates the death of the American