"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald exposes the American society during the 1920's.

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        “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald exposes the American society during the 1920’s. The preface section of the novel states, “The twenties were not a ten-year binge during which everybody got rich and danced the Charleston in speakeasies while drinking bootleg hootch…The Twenties were primarily an era of possibilities and aspiration” (page ix-x).

 During the twenties there was the prohibition which brought on crime and also a time when people were quickly becoming rich. Value for the moral family also declined in the twenties because of an increase in restaurants, bakeries, and fast food. Gary Dean Best gives statistics on this saying, “the number of restaurants in this country increased almost four times as fast as the number of families; between 1914 and 1925, bakery production increased 60 per cent, while population increased only 15 per cent” (page 18). Through his use of character, symbolism, setting, and narrator in his novel, Fitzgerald critiques the causes of the moral decline during the 1920’s, of American society.

        The decline of the moral family during the twenties is exposed through the characters in “The Great Gatsby”. A prime example of this is Tom Buchanan’s character. Urban Americans are described in Best’s “The Dollar Decade” saying they were “never at home except when they have to be; they seem to feel out of place there” (page 21-22). This is how Tom’s character is depicted. He is hardly ever at home, he is almost always in the city of New York either with his mistress or getting drunk. He has a daughter whom is rarely ever around him. She spends her time with her nanny. He has absolutely no respect for his family. He cheats on his wife with a woman from New York, which no secret to anyone. She often telephones him at home and his wife catches on to the situation, but does very little to stop the affair or repair their marriage. Tom definitely exposes the decline of the moral family. He is not the perfect husband or father, and even worse he does not try to be. He finds himself content with drinking, smoking, cheating on his wife, and partying in the city.

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        Fitzgerald also uses the character of Tom’s wife, Daisy, to explore the decline of the moral family. Daisy grew up in an artificial world. Being rich she had many men and everything she wanted was handed to her on a silver platter. After dating Gatsby for a period of time she fell in love, but when he left she got impatient and required a new life right then and there. Fitzgerald’s novel states “She wanted her life shaped now; immediately- and the decision must be made by some force- of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality- that was close at ...

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