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Characteristics Of Individualism In The Great Gatsby

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The Jazz Age was a period that began after World War I and ended with the stock market crash of 1929. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol, made millionaires out of bootleggers. This age saw the beginning of a new style of music which combined ragtime and blues. It was an exciting time, which basis was money and the extravagances that money could buy. During this period, some author such as Scott Fitzgerald wrote novels and short stories criticizing materialism and the selfish individualism of the age. For instance, the novel “The great Gatsby” which tells us the story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire that lives his life trying to win the heart of Daisy Buchanan, with Nick Carraway acting as the narrator. This fiction is not only a love story but also, a portrait of the society Fitzgerald was immersed in. During the whole novel he represents the most outstanding characteristics of the society of the jazz age. Based on this I am going to analyze the characters of Tom, Daisy, Gatsby Myrtle and George as representative of the three Social classes presented and its connection with the American dream as well as the places where they live. To start with let’s see what the American dream is. According to the American historian James Truslow Adams It is the dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. […] It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages

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