The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald.

        The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, is an American novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American short story writer and novelist who was born in 1896 and died in 1940. Among the 178 stories he wrote, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest American novels ever. It is an important novel because it represents America during the 1920's, people main ideas and its trend.

The novel highlights the theme of the American dream, where qualities of hard work and ambition are shown. In fact Jeff Nilssons, an historian, said “it's the Great American Dream”.

Nick Carroway, one of the main characters of the novel, was invented by Fitzgerald to be in his likeness. Fitzgerald was known for his turbulent personal life, he suffered from writer's block, which mean that he was afraid to don't have any inspiration. He also suffer from alcoholism throughout his life and died believing himself was a failure.

So what is GREAT in The Great Gatsby ?

We will see in the first part that the area was great, in a second part that Gatsby is great and in a last part that Gatsby can be considered as a hero.

        First, during the twenties many activities, life styles and music styles marked this area. 1920's was a time of great social change.

        The roaring twenties for example which made the 1920's so exciting because it was a time of parties and illegal practices. The social world had seen many changes, and people began to enjoy parties and alcohol. Girl and women began to wear shorter skirts and make-up, sex was no longer taboo and finally illegal buisness like bootlegging became popular. For the first time in the USA's history there were more people living in urban areas that rural areas. Furthermore, many people watched films at the cinema, enjoyed shopping and drive their car to go everywhere. During the roaring twenties, cities were growing quickly, and more and more buidings were built higher and higher. In their leisure time, people bagan to change their habits, they were listening and playing jazz, they were going to cinema and they were all owning their own radio. The jazz age began at the beginning of 20th century in New Orleans and it was a sort of music revolution. There were two jazz's important centers in 1922, it was Chicago and New York City of course. As I was saying jazz became the only music listened by the Americans in the 1920's; people liked it because it was a mix between work songs and religious songs, so everybody was satisfied. To precise, the work songs are associated to songs sung by slaves who had brought strong musical traditions with them from Africa, whereas the religious songs are associated to songs such as gospel and negro-spirituals. So Jazz was a complete style of music which is based on a complete improvisation which depends of many things as the performer's mood, his personal experience and the interaction with the other musicians. Jazz used many instruments as the piano, the trumpet, the double bass and drums which became characteristic of this time. We can tell Louis Armostrong's name which is very well-known nowadays because he was a great jazz's musician. The cinema was also one of the favorite past time of people in 1927, it was already very popular. In fact the cinema became an even more popular place to visit when films with sound were released for the first time because before that all the films had been silent. The first talking film was “ The Jazz Singer” and it became an important turning point of the roaring twenties especially that it was cheap enough that many people would afford to go. Finally the radio complete the main activities of the roaring twenties. Undoubtedly, the radio set was one of the most popular items that America bought because this radios allowed young people to hear new types of music, especially Jazz.

So the Roaring Twenties was a period where traditional values seemed to be devalued, when the younger generation rebelled against traditional taboos. It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation, and of jazz bands, bootleggers and flappers. The Great Gatsby exposes the moral decadence in the Roaring Twenties through its three main characters wich are Gatsby, Daisy and Tom.

        Changes in women's life contributed in beeing a great area because life for American women changed in the 1920's. Before this area, middle class women in America had restricted lives, they were not supposed to wear makeupand to expose to much skin. They were expected to be housewifes and they didn'h have any rights. That's why things changed in 1920 when women in all states were granted to vote. It was like a new independence, like freedom for them. Then the First World War provided had provided an opportunity for women to work in new jobs as the men were away. Things were further for young women who were living in the cities and they were called flappers. In fact they could wear shorter skirts, drink and smoke in public,dance in the jazz halls, go out with men unaccompanied and even kiss in the streets. That was a big step forward for women!

By 1929, there were 10 million women in jobs , which was a great rised of 25% since the beginning of the decade. Women were also more likely to seek divorce in unhappy mariage because it became easier to have. Finally, The Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933 when the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution went into effect on January 16, 1920. This banned the making, transporting and selling of alcohol in America. This lasted for the whole of the Roaring Twenties. This event then indirectly incited in bootlegging because the transportation of alcohol was no longer legal so illegal buisness was indirectly encouraged. This led to the formation  of the mafia where Al Capone was the leader and who became rich thanks to alcohol trafficking. Moonlighting refers to the illegal production of alcohol, often produced at night as the activity needed to remain secret.

So this period was great and it was perhaps one of the most exciting period in American history. There were a revolution in the radical changes of attitudes to society and with the loss of the taboos' subjects, the rise of skyscrapers, the fashions and the movie-craze.

        Then, Gatsby is totally considered as great. As we know, the title of Fitzgeralds' book is “The Great Gatsby” which can be read from two different ways.

        First, we can talk about the “superficial” aspect of his greatness: Gatsby's persona and more precisely his wealth. Indeed we see his luxurious and gorgeous mansion, his parties, his big yellow car and his flashy wardrobe. His good reputation with peope who know his name and his parties also made him great because his larger-than-life personality and his joviality are characteristic of himself. He's one of the wealthiest people on Long Island, and obvously the wealthiest in West Egg.

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