A Society Without Morals - The Great Gatsby Essay examples -- F. Scott

The streets are paved with gold has long been the allusion of the United States of America meaning that America is the land of opportunity and wealth for anyone. However what people fail to understand when they manage to get to America is that, although it is the land of opportunity, an individual is not able to magically go from dirt poor to filthy rich, they have to work for it. Even after working for it many people are disappointed not because they did not get more money, they just did not as much as the expected. In the 1920s this was because of all the illegal activity that was happening through out the country, mainly bootleggers such as Jay Gatsby. With illegal activity comes lack of moral conscience such as marrying for money or not staying faithful in a marriage like Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. F. Scott Fitzgerald clearly expresses the failures of American society during the 1920s in his novel The Great Gatsby through the characters of Gatsby, Myrtle, Tom, and Daisy. The fact that Gatsby was so desperate money in order for him to be able marry Daisy that he broke the law to get it and was able to avoid punishment is an obvious example of the failures of society. Gatsby has been in love with Daisy for five years and she has loved him, but because of his lack of money and him going off to war, Daisy picked Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man, instead. Once he returned to war, he realized he would have to make a great deal of money to win Daisy back. To do this, he decided to start up ?drug-stores? where he became a bootlegger. The reader knows that Gatsby is a bootlegger because of Tom Buchanan, who finds out excatly what Gatsby?s ?drug stores? really were. This is evident when Tom says, He...bought u... ...n world at the same time. The Great Gatsby conveys the message to the reader the many faults in American society during the Roaring Twenties. These flaws are quite evident throughout the novel but most strong through the character of Gatsby, Myrtle, Tom, and Daisy. Those four characters easily display to the reader just how much lack of care there was in during the 1920s. Failure in marriage and bootlegging, although just isolated examples, are very prevalent in The Great Gatsby . Of course, money is the center of every flaw, money causes Gatsby to break the law it causes Daisy to marry into unhappiness, and causes Tom to have a wife that has never love him. Just because The Great Gatsby is centered in a 1920s society, no one can overlook its importance on today?s society. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan, 2008.