The Great Gatsby was a fictional novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a mysterious millionaire, Jay Gatsby, living in Long Island during the roaring twenties. The story was published in 1925 and it accurately portrays the time period in New York City and Long Island including the extreme wealth that was evident during this time for some people. It is a story that depicts the American dream during the Jazz Age as Jay Gatsby hosts immaculate parties to draw in the woman of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan. Although it is a fictional narrative, it presents a very precise representation of the suburbs of New York City in 1920’s America which were marked with tremendous economic affluence and the development of new life changing technologies like automobiles, broadcast radio, movies, recorded music, and even organized crime which became a mass culture.

The story takes place in the fictional town of West Egg in Long Island where Nick Carraway moves into a small house next to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby knows that Nick is the cousin of his one true love, Daisy Buchanan, and therefore befriends him by inviting him to one of his extravagant parties. Gatsby throws these wildly luxurious parties in hopes that Daisy will one day show up and see how wealthy and powerful he is. Eventually he becomes close with Nick and gets him to set up a meeting between himself and Daisy. They have an affair over the summer, but Daisy’s husband Tom finds out. Although Tom is having and affair himself, he is outraged by Daisy’s actions and confronts Gatsby at a hotel in New York City. Tom also informs his wife that Gatsby’s fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol which was illegal because of the prohibition placed on the substance at the time. In the end, Gatsby and Daisy get into a serious car crash with Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, who was driving the other car. Myrtle’s husband believes that the person driving the other car was Myrtle’s secret lover and he finds out that Gatsby was the driver. He therefore shoots and kills Gatsby and them kills himself with the same gun.

Nick holds a funeral for Gatsby but none of his associates show up, not even the hundreds of people who attended his luxurious parties for years. This shows that wealth and power had no real meaning and that Gatsby was truly alone throughout the whole novel. He held all of his parties in hopes that Daisy would eventually show up and immediately be impressed by his affluence, even though he knew she was married. He didn’t care about any of the other guests which showed that although he had such immense wealth, he was sad and alone the entire time. He also had made his entire fortune illegally which forced him to hide major parts of his identity from those closest to him. Fitzgerald purposely portrayed this time period as lacking in moral values to show that the American Dream had been corrupted. He showed the greed and craving for money and pleasure which became the main goal of this generation of Americans. These young men had just fought in World War 1 and had experienced a great deal of trauma which disoriented their sense of morality. Many of these men generated great wealth for themselves with the rise of the stock market as well as illegal ventures like bootlegging and indulged in this newfound materialism.