Social Status and Individual Identity A Study of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby

Abstract

literature, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a well-known American novelist and short storey writer of the Roaring Twenties. They depict a lack of morality, lack of principles, and an internal moral dilemma among American youth during World War I. Economic growth in the United States was out of control during the Roaring Twenties. Aristocrats' extravagant banquets and fashionable attire inspired a new generation of wealthy businessmen. Greed and hypocrisy have taken over the individualism and moral ideals of the typical American in the 1920s.
In "The Great Gatsby," every character's desire to rise to a position of social prominence overshadows their uniqueness. Because of his romantic feelings for Daisy, Jay Gatsby, the main character, becomes more and more obsessed with the opulent lifestyle of the wealthy upper classes. In order to rekindle his relationship with Daisy, Gatsby uses his fortune from bootlegging to live an extravagant lifestyle. All his splendour, though, is dwarfed by his wife's aristocratic spouse, Tom Buchanan. A mistress for Myrtle Wilson is a way for her to escape her awful life and for Tom it is just another status symbol. It's the upper class's whims and fancies that Myrtle entertains. As a result, the deaths of Gatsby and Myrtle have little effect on Daisy and Tom's marriage, which is mostly a financial arrangement.