Social Boundaries In The Great Gatsby

Breaking Social Boundaries
The era of the 1920s was a pinnacle time in American History and the literature that was produced from this era showcases the social change happening. This was the time of social upheaval where the people were challenging social boundaries. The values that had been sought after in the period before this were becoming less and else prevalent in the new society. There are many viewpoints of this time period so the literature of this time was very diverse and many works showed the changing cultures. The 1920’s were a period filled with an overflow of social change and the literature of the time showcased this change, from the changing viewpoints on woman, to the voice of the black community gaining grounds, and the

Traditionally a woman was the homemaker and their only purpose was to take care of the home and the children while the men went out and worked. During this time period gender roles were beginning to evolve into something far more complex than they had been. Women had just been given the right to vote and were starting to see that it was possible to be more than just a wife and mother. Even the men authors of the era noticed this, and this influenced the writing they produced. F Scott Fitzgerald’s stories often made the protagonist an image of his wife Zelda who is the original Flapper and a symbol of freedom. F Scott Fitzgerald’s character Judy Jones in “Winter Dreams” was described as
“She was not a girl who could be “won” in the kinetic sense – she was proof against cleverness, she was proof against charge, if any of these assailed her too strongly she would immediate resolve the affair to a physical basis and under the magic of her physical spender the strong as well as the brilliant played her game and not their own”(Fitzgerald

This was partly because she was a black woman writing about very high profile events and issues of the time period. She presents the ideas of the freedom of woman and then many of the same concepts as Hughes did in his writing. She contemplated racial identity and the cultural differences but came to the same conclusion as Hughes did in saying that different cultural activates did not make them different from other races. In her short story “How it Feels to be Colored Me” there are many passages that portray her work as a whole and capture the voice of the black community “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mothers side was not an Indian Chief”(Hurston 2124). The very first lines in this piece by her definitely resonate her opinionated voice. The readers of this piece can sense the anger expressed her about the views of the black community and that first line shows that this piece will continue to be as hard hitting as the beginning lines. Another powerful line in the same piece would be a line that talks about being a black woman is not a misfortune on her behalf and is calling out the people who view the black community as