Great Gatsby the Iconic Novel the Great

Great Gatsby

The iconic novel The Great Gatsby is set in the "Roaring Twenties" in New York City. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald used the setting and the cultural era to great effect, as his characters, their parties and extravagant lifestyles -- and conversations -- offer readers a good glimpse into the American that existed during those years. This paper points to the details of the period, and this paper agrees with the statement that Fitzgerald was in fact making a comment on the era of the Twenties, the new rich that had come into money in that time period, and their values.

The Great Gatsby

What can we learn from the novel about New York in the 1920s? We can learn that there was certainly racial segregation, and fear of the black community by the rich upper crust white community was a reality. Whether this was culturally exact or not at that time in New York, is beside the point, although one can assume Fitzgerald wasn't that far off since the rest of his descriptive narrative about the era was close to accurate.

The novel establishes a racist tone and uses racist stereotypes. History shows alert students that at the time these events were going on in New York, Jim Crow discrimination / segregation dominated the South. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Louis Decker explains that although African-Americans only appear twice in Gatsby, although New York "was becoming a mecca of Black American politics and culture" (Decker, 1994, p. 3). The stereotyping was on page 73 occurred on the Queensboro Bridge, when Gatsby and narrator Nick are crossing the bridge and look over to see a limo that was "…driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl" (Fitzgerald, p. 73). In the first place, to use the word "bucks" to identify to African-American men, is to place them in the same sub-human category as animals; to wit, male deer and rabbits are called "bucks." The narrator looks over and while the limo is actually part of a funeral procession, the scene is amusing to him. "I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in a haughty rivalry" (Fitzgerald, p. 73). That passage seems to be making light of America's town minstrel theater at the time, when whites used blackface to mimic blacks and the rolling of the eyes was in wide use in those productions. Using "yolks" reduces the human eye to an egg laid by a chicken. Once again, racial separation and racial stereotypes were common in that era, and are brought out in the novel.

Clearly the period of the Twenties was a happy time for many in America because World War 1 was over, the country had avoided the influenza epidemic that killed thousands in Europe, and money was plentiful for those who cashed in on various careers (including illegal ones like Gatsby was involved with). That having been said, money was everything to those seeking higher social status. Gatsby was enthralled with Daisy; she is the symbol of everything that is important to Gatsby because not only was she attractive but her voice was "full of money -- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jungle of it, the cymbals' song in it" (Fitzgerald p. 127). Money, when combined with sexual appeal, really attracted Gatsby like an iron shaving to a powerful magnet.