The Lost Generation Of Old Men In The Great Gatsby

9.7 million men dead. This magnitude of loss left the entire world reeling post World War I. A death toll that high had never been seen before. November 11, 1918 marked Armistice Day—the surviving soldiers finally returned home. But though they returned physically back to their families, jobs, and everyday lives, their minds remained “In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers” They never returned to the men they had been before the war. No, these men were forever changed. So altered, this generation of young men received the title of “The Lost Generation”. Designated so because of their lack of enjoyment in people and activities that used to delight them pre-war, and their continual abandonment of anything they began to become deeply attached to, these men lived their lives after World War I in a

Post World War I, those considered part of the Lost Generation plunged themselves into a period of extravagance consisting of lavish wild parties; bootlegging; and the irrational squandering of wealth. The decade after World War I now dubbed “the roaring twenties” or “the jazz age”, exemplified this exorbitant indulgence. Particularly in the United States, money was rolling in and many Americans boasted great wealth. In order to fully grasp the opulence of this time, one must look to the book The Great Gatsby in which “F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized the excess of the Jazz Age”. The majority of the central characters in the Great Gatsby possess considerable wealth. Among this prosperous social crowd, lavish parties occurred on a regular basis. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald focused on the grand, excessive parties thrown by Jay Gatsby—a veteran of World War I and member of the Lost Generation—saying "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whispering and the champagne and the stars…On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from