The Great Gatsby: Ethics, Wealth, and the Jazz Age
This essay examines F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a reflection of post-World War I American society, focusing on the ethical contradictions embedded in Prohibition-era culture and the clash between old and new money. Through characters such as Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Daisy, and narrator Nick Carraway, the essay explores how the trauma of the Great War reshaped personal values, ambition, and moral standards. The analysis highlights how the illegal alcohol trade created fertile ground for organized crime, corruption, and the erosion of ethical norms, while also arguing that Gatsby's singular determination distinguishes him as a figure worthy of the novel's title.
- Introduction: Post-War America and the Drive to Live: WWI trauma fuels reckless post-war cultural energy
- Prohibition, Illegal Business, and the Collapse of Ethics: Prohibition breeds crime and moral disintegration
- Old Money vs. New Money: The Social Arena: Class conflict shapes character relationships and values
- Gatsby's Ambition and the American Dream: Gatsby's self-made rise as American Dream embodiment
- The Human Psyche in a Post-War World: War reshapes individual psychology and provincial identity
- Conclusion: Ethics, Desire, and the Jazz Age Legacy: Organized crime and ethics in Prohibition-era America
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay situates the novel firmly within its historical context — Prohibition and the aftermath of World War I — giving the literary analysis a strong socio-historical foundation.
- Two well-chosen direct quotations from the novel are used to anchor analytical claims about post-war psychology and restlessness, showing how textual evidence supports broader arguments.
- The paper draws a clear thematic throughline from the ethics of Prohibition-era business to the personal moral failures of individual characters, connecting macro-historical forces to intimate human behavior.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The essay demonstrates contextual literary analysis — reading character motivation and plot through the lens of historical and cultural circumstance. Rather than treating the novel in isolation, the writer grounds each character's behavior in the specific social pressures of 1920s America, showing how external forces (war trauma, Prohibition, class structure) shape internal moral choices.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing the post-WWI cultural mood, then traces how Prohibition created the conditions for ethical collapse and organized crime. It introduces the central characters as embodiments of competing class values, elevates Gatsby as a figure of exceptional will and ambition, and closes by connecting the novel's themes to the broader psychology of a generation scarred by war. The structure moves from historical context outward to character analysis and inward to psychological insight.
Introduction: Post-War America and the Drive to Live
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is iconic for capturing a period and a place where the world was seized by a desperate drive to recover from the trauma of a world war. The encounter with mass death — at a moment when most people believed wars were a thing of the past — left an entire young generation determined to experience everything life had to offer and live it to the fullest.
Alcohol prohibition created the perfect frame for this post-war American world: everyone rushed to break the law. The business-savvy were in their element, since no formal schooling was required and the merchandise was in high demand. All that was needed was the will to get to work and deal with whoever was willing to supply the liquor. Money had no smell. Fitzgerald, who had lived in both the Old World and the New, and who had experienced the Great War firsthand, translated his own experience — as well as what he witnessed in the United States after the war — into this novel, creating characters who continue to speak to generations long after that era had passed.
Prohibition, Illegal Business, and the Collapse of Ethics
Jay Gatsby pulls strings and conducts dubious business involving the prohibited sale and consumption of alcohol, throwing lavish parties every weekend. The Prohibition law itself was ethically compromised, since its primary effect was to encourage and create endless opportunities for all sorts of people — more or less respectable — to become wealthy criminals. Gatsby spends staggering sums on his weekend parties for two reasons: to bribe officials in high positions and to attract attention. Viewed through Nick Carraway's eyes, Gatsby's determination and his willingness to rise from the poorest neighborhoods and build an empire in the name of love seem to be the qualities that entitled Fitzgerald to call this novel The Great Gatsby rather than simply Jim Gatsby. The author understood firsthand what a human being is capable of when driven by love — though Fitzgerald himself did not enter the risky business of bootlegging, he worked hard to earn money to support his wife's extravagant spending.
Old Money vs. New Money: The Social Arena
There was nothing new about the story of old and new money in America. Just as the Civil War had brought the nouveau riche onto the scene, the Great War had recreated the opportunity for some to leap into the saddle and begin earning. Since history repeats itself, it was precisely the lack of pedigree — the absence of "smell" — that made it impossible for old money to accept new money into the ranks of respectability.
Characters like Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan are placed in opposite corners of the arena largely because of the age of their respective wealth. Tom Buchanan stands as the proud representative and inheritor of a respectable wealthy family that supposedly accumulated vast fortunes across several generations by living the American Dream. Daisy, whose family was far less wealthy but equally respectable, married Tom — apparently yielding to her family's wishes — and added social currency to the equation. Her second cousin, Nick Carraway, who graduated from an Ivy League college and aspired to earn his own fortune through respectable means, witnesses the conflict among these three characters firsthand. He discovers what happens when human beings seeking happiness at all costs become blinded by their passions and fall prey to their own limitations.
Conclusion: Ethics, Desire, and the Jazz Age Legacy
The laws of business apply in legal as well as in illegal enterprise. The illegal alcohol trade between 1920 and 1933 created the best conditions for organized crime to thrive at a scale never seen before in that part of the world, driving the value of human life toward nothing in the streets of America's great cities. Fitzgerald captured this world with extraordinary precision, showing through Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and Nick how the pursuit of happiness without ethical grounding leads inevitably to destruction. The restlessness born of war, amplified by Prohibition and the hunger for wealth, defined a generation — and The Great Gatsby remains its most enduring portrait.
References
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Interactive Media, 2012.
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