The Great Gatsby Research Paper

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The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald expresses the decline of the American Dream in his novel “The Great Gatsby” with the usage of mainly themes and symbolism. The main themes in the novel are the decay of morals and values of a “modern” society. The Great Gatsby portrays the deterioration of the American Dream and the want for fancy and nice possessions. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a Jazz Age writer and short story author who is considered to be among the best twentieth-century American journalists. Conceived on September 24, 1896, he was the only child of an upper class father and a common, average working mother. He attended St. Paul Academy and eventually went to Princeton. There he joined a club known as the Triangle Club and began to write plays.…show more content…
The West Egg symbolizes “new money” and the East egg symbolizes “old money”. The 1920's were a time of corruption and loss of moral values for the United States. “Youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves” (157). World War 1 just ended and people were trying to start off fresh again and forget about the war. As a result, new mass produced items like motor cars and radios were popping up in people's driveways and houses. Money was also more accessible. Cars were becoming a social symbol in the 1920s. Fitzgerald shows this in the novel through Gatsby’s 5 cars. He even gives one to his friend Nick in the novel. This kills Myrtle Wilson later on in the…show more content…
In the 1920s delineated in the novel, be that as it may, pain free income and loose social qualities have undermined this fantasy, particularly on the East Coast. Nick contemplates the “…unknown world…” of America ascending from the sea to the green light toward the end of Daisy's dock (180). Gatsby's fantasy is destroyed by greed, generally as the American dream in the 1920s is demolished by greed of cash and satisfaction. “Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound” (180). At this point when Gatsby’s fantasy disintegrates, all that’s left for him to do is just give up. Because of this, Nick moves back to Minnesota, where American qualities have not

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