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Urban Culture In The Great Gatsby

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The 1920s was a time of profound political and social change. America’s economy was booming following the Great war and the country emerged as a new World superpower. This surge of wealth along with the advancements in technology swept American’s into a consumer society; sports, music, and film all became important aspects of American pop culture during the 1920s. American pop culture was synonymous with Urban culture; during the 1920s, people relocated to large cities such as New York and Chicago, and this emerging Urban society created a new way of life that was vastly different from rural America, traditional norms were challenged as a new age of self-expression and indulgence took over American culture. Just as westward expansion brought …show more content…

Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, reflects the jaded attitudes of the lost generation and the novel proves to be a criticism of America’s aristocracy and the excess of lavish living and lack of morality that overcame people during the 1920s. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwestern guy who represents the lost generations aversion to materialism and decadence, and Carraway tells the story of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby was one of the top socialites in New York and would throw huge extravagant parties in his huge mansion; he represented the American Dream, coming from humble beginnings Gatsby serves in the Great War and worked his way into wealth so he can live a better life and impress the love of his life, Daisy. The story is filled with adultery, excess drinking during the time of Prohibition, and greed. The frivolous and unrestrained living that the majority of the characters participated in reflected sentiments about the Lost Generation’s lost identity and inability to find a purpose in life or to have goals to strive towards; morality was cast aside and self-indulgence was most important during this time. Despite Gatsby’s rise to fame and fortune, in the end it didn’t matter, the reckless life that he and Daisy and her husband lived had consequences that he ended up paying for—Carraway realized this and decided to leave the fast life associated with urban life in the 1920s

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In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author uses many differnt retorical devices to add a personal flare to his work. He uses diction, symbolism, and irony to adress many different themes. These themes include Materialism, The American Dream, and includes a sharp and biting ridicule on American society in the 1920’s. The main point of Fitzgerald, arguement is one where he sharply criticizes the Society of the time.

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The 1920’s, America booming with newly found individuality, independence, and freedom that bared from the fallout of World War 1, a time where practically penniless men turned into billionaires overnight, and back again within the next, where women could dress, do, and go wherever they desired, but above all, what began to determined the world of some, that determined the world of many. “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a perfect example of this truth. This literary piece exemplifies a almost satire like critique of American life in the 1920’s. Each character of “The Great Gatsby” display a certain quality of a particular persona of the middle to high white social classes that were common at the time. All of which are observed by the self righteous judgemental eyes of Nick Carraway, through him we observe immoral, ill content, and irrational actions that enact all in the name of the pursuance of love and happiness.

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The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. On the surface, the book revolves around the concept of romance, the love between two individuals. However, the novel incorporates less of a romantic scope and rather focuses on the theme of the American Dream in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of decline in moral values. The strong desire for luxurious pleasure and money ultimately corrupts the American dream which was originally about individualism.

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Recounting heartbreak, betrayal, and deception, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a bleak picture in the 1920’s novel The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, witnesses the many lies others weave in order to achieve their dreams. However, the greatest deception he encounters is the one he lives. Not having a true dream, Nick instead finds purpose by living vicariously through others, and he loses that purpose when they are erased from his life.

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Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are two of the most important characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel many comparisons and contrasts can be made, however, this may be arguably the most important due to the magnitude of importance of these two characters and the roles they play in progressing the story. Jay Gatsby, a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic Mansion in West Egg and the protagonist, throws constant parties every Saturday night, but nobody has much insight about him. Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota who lives in New York City to learn the bond business, is typically an honest and tolerant man. Although they do share some similarities, they also share a plethora of differences in their

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The 1920s marked the birth of a new social and political age, with the country’s overall wealth more than doubling during the decade, introducing more recreational uses for money, and the amount of people living in urban areas outnumbering that of rural areas. For the first time in America, people were becoming more interconnected with each other, shown through national interest in the same goods, the same music, the same dance techniques, and even the same slang. This “Mass Culture” led to many new things in the 1920s, such as “The Jazz Age”, which gave many a chance to express themselves artistically with worldwide gratification, and the new role given to women in America. However, not every part of the 1920s was so grand. One of the most

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Illusion of Gatsby v. Allusion to Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest work, The Great Gatsby, is seen as an image representative of opulence, deception, and the period of the Roaring 20’s in America. The common themes allowed the novel to relate to the average reader’s life while also casting shade on the average American’s life. The viewing of Jay Gatsby’s convoluted life, shrouded past, and love affairs through Nicks Carraway’s narration caused The Great Gatsby to become an instant classic in the twenties, and to this day is still viewed in this way, resulting in Fitzgerald’s work to be read by almost every high school student in the United States. Due to The Great Gatsby’s vast array of readers, other sources have been able to utilize

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The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and narrated by a man named Nick Carraway. This novel was written with the intent of showing the readers how morally corrupt the 1920s were. Throughout the novel, characters abandon their moral values for a materialistic lifestyle. The novel depicts a great picture of the roles men and women played in the 1920s. Even with the changing roles of men and women, they continued to rely heavily on whom they were married to and what social class they belonged to.

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It stopped being about working hard and keeping your morals, and Gatsby shows this by obtaining his fortune through lucrative, illegal means. Nick Carraway is also incredibly important in illustrating the allegory of the American Dream and how it is vapid and dying in the current age. Nick reveals how lonely and empty Gatsby is, and how he tries to fill that hole with money and love, and tries to gain love through money. The Great Gatsby shows how the American Dream isn’t really a goal of success and happiness and fulfillment, it’s a goal of power and vanity and luxury.

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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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The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis “They were careless people…” says Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby. In a story depicting the 1920s during a time of prosperity, growth, and the emergence of the America as a major global power, this statement may seem to be contrary. But in reality, Nick Carraway’s description of his friends and the people he knew, was not only true, but is an indication of those who were striving for the American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that the American Dream is foolish, the people who pursue it are immoral and reckless, and this pursuit is futile. First, F. Scott Fitzgerald proposes that the American dream is foolish.

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