Moses Janosky 1

Moses Janosky

Mr.Smith

Junior

1/8/23

The darkside of the Roaring 20s

Uses grammarly and recheck format after wareds

One of the most iconic writers of the 20th century is F. Scout Fitzgerald, and author of

The Great Gatsby. The book takes place in America during the roaring twenties where the rich

lived lavish lifestyles riddled with parties, celebrations, and alcohol. This lead to rather gloomy

times with wealth and success. The novel displays a pessimistic view of the 1920s, due to

disastrous twists and careless mistakes.

Gatsby’s insatiable hunger for wealth is the result of his life experiences. “His

parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people–his imagination had never really accepted

them as his parents at all” (70). Gatsby was born and raised in the Midwest sharing aspirations of

being rich like anyone else and he helped his parents out on the farm. This was the first spark in

Gatsby for the need of something more. Later Gatsby meets Dan Cody when fishing on Lake

Superior, telling Dan that a storm is near. “He was employed in a vague personal capacity–while

he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan

Cody”(72). Dan Cody took an immediate liking to Gatsby and hired him to be his personal

assistant aboard his yacht, spending his time with some of the most successful people. Dan

proceeded to educate Gatsby in giving off the appearance of extreme wealth. He taught him how

to present himself to others, what to wear, how to wow his guests with not only materialistic
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objects, but to be a true gentleman. Dan Cody became a mentor to Gatsby and provided him the

perfect disguise of wealth from his beginnings.

As a young man Gatsby is getting ready to go to war with plans on marrying his fiance

Daisy when he gets back. “Daisy breaks their engagement and is married to Tom Buchanan, a

rich young man who was born from an enormously wealthy family with a high social

status”(Zhang). Daisy has become persuaded by Tom's ability to buy her love, while she

willingly allows him to. As the two go down separate paths, Gatsby never gives up hope in

eventually winning back his fiance through a life of crime. “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a

lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter”

Fitzgerald (97). Gatsby and his partner in crime Mr.Wolfsheim capitalized on the prohibition by

selling alcohol which was illegal at the time. This was a huge market since people needed to

drink and pay lots to do so. He saw the opportunity to become very successful and he did using

the pursuit of Daisy to justify the rather unsavory means to a new life gained by crime.

The destructive consequences of wealth in the roaring twenties. “Rapid modernization

with the spread of electricity and the widespread usage of the automobile”(Marcus). With all the

new inventions and innovations who wouldn't be blinded by positivity and allow themselves to

dream big. As signs of success are everywhere, especially with automobiles on the roads and

massely produced for the people giving nearly everyone the ability to drive. “The “death car” as

the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for

a moment and then disappeared around the next bend”(100). Tom was having an affair with

Myrtle but it ended with her death. The irony of this hit and run is that the driver of the “death

car” is none other than Tom’s wife Daisy, who unknowingly ended Tom’s affair. The only reason

she was driving was because Gatsby, her, Nick, Tom, and Jordan were celebrating and drinking,
 Moses Janosky 3

deciding to continue elsewhere led to disaster. As invincibility from wealth promotes destructive

and reckless behavior causing the people around them to be harmed.

Fitzgerald shows wonder and prosperity to the reader, before using elaborate twists to

reveal the problems of the roaring twenties. He focuses on the antics of the wealthy and

successful to display the pessimistic views of good turning bad. The points he made then stay

true today by people going too far with alcohol, parties, and the dangers of the pursuit of wealth.
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Works Cited

FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT. Great Gatsby. KTOCZYTA PL, 2022.

Haibing, Zhang. “Symbolic Meanings of Colors in The Great Gatsby.” Published Online 26 June 2015,
vol. 10, June 2015, pp. 38–44,

Witcher, Marcus M., and Joseph Horton. From Prosperity to Poverty: The Story of American Economic
Decline During the 1920s. 2013, p. 9, [PDF] na-businesspress.com.
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Skill Not Foundational Proficient Advanced

Yet
Identifies a topic Appears in first Thesis establishes a
paragraph complex claim

Thesis establishes a
topic and a claim

Thesis Comments:

Includes two or Includes evidence Includes specific,

fewer sources from scholarly and meaningful, and
informational well-chosen
Some evidence sources that connect evidence that relates
relates to the thesis to the novel and to the thesis
support the thesis

Evidence

Comments:

Summarizes sources Explains how Explains

evidence supports well-selected points
topic sentence of of comparison
individual among sources and
paragraphs evidence and their
connection to the
Analysis Explains how details thesis
in the novel are
significant in
regards to context,
character, plot, or
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theme

Comments:

… Little connection Explains how the Clearly explains

between texts; texts/sources are relationships among
difficult for the related, though texts (how they
reader to see how points could be confirm or challenge
the texts are related more selective or each other, build on
better developed each other, provide
Synthesis differing
Includes multiple perspectives, etc.)
sources in each body
paragraph

Comments:

Some elements Heading is correctly No errors in MLA

missing or some formatted format
errors in MLA format
Pages are numbered

In-text citations are

correctly formatted

Works Cited format:

hanging indent,
MLA Format double-spaced,
alphabetized, starts
on a new page

Works Cited: each

source entry is in
correct MLA format
Comments:
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Shows evidence of Most quotes are All quotes are

basic proofreading correctly integrated correctly integrated

Follows essay Shows evidence of

Conventions organization careful proofreading

Shows evidence of
proofreading

Comments:

Moses,
We need to figure out how to get the great ideas you had on your mind-map, into your writing.
Main goal for next piece of writing, moving from summarizing a text, to analyzing it (i.e.
explaining HOW and WHY the evidence supports your thesis, instead of what happened)... We’ll
get there
Grade: C