The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1939 Words

Fitzgerald was an inspired individual and had the remarkable ability to write in such a way that his written works are everlasting echoes of his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a literary genius and his work; The Great Gatsby was not only a reflection of his own life, but an outlet for the ever-changing society of the 1920s. The Great Gatsby was influenced by the standards of this time period. The 1920s were an age of excess, characterized by opulence and false satisfaction. American society reached an apparent peak of wealth, and wealthy New Yorkers drowned among illegal alcohol and lavish goods. The important people in his life also impacted Fitzgerald, and characters in his novel could be compared with many people in his life, among†¦show more content†¦January 16, 1920 brought about a new era that outlawed the selling of alcohol, yet allowed the purchase of alcohol. The new prohibition era dramatically altered the diets of the Americans where alcohol was once a staple, now leaving American families reeling due to their conflicted emotions about the purchase of alcohol (Kyvig 3). Not only were diets drastically altered, the job market experienced a negative rise in illegal professions. A large percent of the American people saw the prohibition as unnecessary and an error, and as a result did not take the laws regarding the consumption of alcohol seriously (Kyvig 179). As people sought after alcohol, the rise of bootleggers and speakeasy owners rose during the 1920s, and Fitzgerald embraced this as the profession for his protagonist, Jay Gatsby. At Gatsby’s parties, alcohol flowed freely, I ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library (Fitzgerald 61). Regardless of the prohibition, Gatsby had the ability to get drunk and drink consistently. Fitzgerald created an air of mystery surrounding the source of Jay Gatsby’s ability to get alcohol. In The Great Gatsby partygoers would compare wild s tories that they believed accredited for Gatsby’s unbelievable wealth that afforded him alcohol. In the voice of Tom Buchanan, Fitzgerald revealed that Gatsby was indeed a bootlegger. Tom stated â€Å"He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and