Gatsby and the Gilded Age

So this week in American Studies we have been discussing the Gilded Age, which was an era in America history where great wealth was gained through industry and economic expansion, but also through corruption and the self-promotion of wealthy rich white men. It was an era of glory and glamor and riches but left huge holes in the economy, eventually causing the system to fall through and for America to fall into the Great Depression.  In American Literature we also have been discussing the Gilded Age through the Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a classic American novel discussing the life of those self-promoting white men and the society they lived in through the narrator, a middle-aged man named Nick Carraway. Nick describes the world of the glamorous as delicate and not as glamorous as it may seem from the outside. This is an accurate representation of the Gilded Age because the economy of the 1920s seemed strong and full of opportunity and happiness, but under that surface is was actually weak and not very happy. I think the connection between the Gilded Age and Gatsby is a very important connection to make because Nick's story of Gatsby and the fragile world of high society gives a first hand, although fictional, account of the Gilded Age and all its glory.