F Scott Fitzgerald’s intricately-patterned text explores society in post World War One America and how the ideal of the American Dream is lost. The dream is personalised through the characters, both rich and poor, providing a universal message. This is the “Lost Generation”, a term coined by Gertrude Stein to describe how the values in American society descended into the pursuit of wealth during this period. He enables the reader to see the events through different eyes, although mainly through the narrator, Nick. He represents Fitzgerald himself, who came from a traditional upper middle-class family. His father lost his money and so Fitzgerald, like Nick, had to find a way to earn his living. Both are attracted to their rich contemporaries but are also appalled by their shallowness and lack of real values. This is portrayed …show more content…
Nick’s words expose the writer’s view that the values of the Jazz Age (a term coined by Fitzgerald), have become materialistic and so have led to the dissolution of the original American Dream. .The American Declaration of Independence states that every citizen should enjoy the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This implies that self-improvement is essential to the achievement of the American Dream. However, in the novel, Fitzgerald soon shows the reader how this has translated into the pursuit of wealth: when he meets Daisy, Gatsby’s dream of becoming “a great man” changes to an urgency to be wealthy enough to marry her. This mirrors Fitzgerald’s own situation; he fell in love with Zelda but she refused to marry him until he had enough money to comfortably support her. Thus, he compromised his ideals by writing short stories to fund the lifestyle Zelda craved. Similarly, Gatsby turns to bootlegging to earn enough money to please