The Great Gatsby
The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the "Jazz
Age". Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American society
enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as
the economy soared.
At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale
and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made
millionaires out of bootleggers and led to an increase in organized
crime, for example the Jewish mafia. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick
Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches and glamor of the age, he was
uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and the lack of
morality that went with it, a kind of decadence.
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