Saturday, December 6, 2014
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.
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I agree with the observations Lily makes. I think that the Great Gatsby was written to show all of the hedonism and wealth that was occurring during this time period, and gives a superficial view of America- it fails to focus on important issues such as immigrants' rights and persecution.
ReplyDeleteOkay Lily, good observation first of all. I did not realize the connection between the Gilded Age and the Great Gatsby until now. Your illustration of how the glamorous world was not as delicate or happy as it seemed from the outside is a great representation of the thin sheet of gold completely covering the outside, so that it looks nice. Moreover, I think it can go further and talk about the divide between the wealthy and the poor. During this golden era, the rich became richer, and the poor became even poorer. Myrtle Wilson, her husband, and the people in the region of ash heaps seemed to diminish, even when their representation in the society was almost already nonexistent, while Gatsby seemed to attract more and more attention as days passed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lily's connection between the Great Gatsby and the Guilded Age. I disagree with Daeho's statement that Gatsby seemed to attract more people. At the end of the novel, Nick states that except for him, Gatsby's father, and a few other servants, no one was present at Gatsby's funeral. This shows that wealth only objectified the human. Do you think that Fitzgerald was against wealthy individuals because of the way he portrayed Tom and Daisy and Gatsby's death?
ReplyDeleteKavya, your question is most interesting. If we were to look at Fitzgerald's novel as an interpretation of history, what might we make of it? How would Fitzgerald fare in an OPVL, for instance?
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