On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope.

Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald portrays the s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals.

When World War I ended inthe generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels.

A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators.

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Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment inwhich banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike. Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends.

Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war.

East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. As Fitzgerald saw it and as Nick explains in Chapter 9the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness.

In the s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. Additionally, places and stock market crash 1920s definition in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. Just as Americans have given America meaning stock market crash 1920s definition their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses.

Like s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so.

When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy.

Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure.

Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota is connected to more traditional social values and shops open anzac day brisbane 2016. Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a forexnetgain.net review attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.

In Chapter 9, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, 60 second binary options strategy vic review have looked to early settlers of the new nation. First introduced in Chapter 2, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes.

It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure.

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The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result. The eyes of Doctor T. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning.

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The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning.

He does get a call from Chicago but later when Nick says goodbye he gets a call from Philadelphie. Nick does not get drunk at Gatsby's party--in chapter two, he gets drunk at Tom and Myrtle's party.

Gatsby's party does not occur until chapter three. Want our help with your assigned summer reading? Vote for your book here! How classic authors pitched their novels, probably. Search Menu jQuery document. Other Subjects Biology Biography Chemistry Computer Science Drama Economics Film History Literature Math Philosophy Physics Poetry Psychology Sociology U. The Great Gatsby F. Contents Context Plot Overview Character List Analysis of Major Characters Jay Gatsby Nick Carraway Daisy Buchanan.

Share this Sparknote Share on Twitter. Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

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The Decline of the American Dream in the s On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The Great Gatsby, as told in texts. Take a quiz on this section!

More Help Watch the Video SparkNote Watch the Video SparkNote Previous Next jQuery document. John Green by ThebookpandaJanuary 14, John Green did a Crash Course on Youtube on Great Gatsby.

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Gatsby's Party by skycitizenettaJanuary 17, Nick does not get drunk at Gatsby's party--in chapter two, he gets drunk at Tom and Myrtle's party. Take a Study Break! How indecisive are you? Will you pass the FLIRT test?