

Fitzgerald intentionally created Nick as an open-minded, patient character who is quietly perceptive in order to shed light on the greedy and hypocritical nature of extravagant wealth. This disillusionment is something that narrator Nick Carraway remarks on throughout the novel. The reckless abandon with which the wealthy partied and celebrated their wealth alienated a whole class of people while causing the wealthy to forget their morals in favor of corruption, notoriety, and pleasure. In the novel, Fitzgerald portrays this time of excess and material prosperity as experiencing a co-occurrent decay of social and moral values. The nation’s economy was booming, and many people found themselves experiencing increased wealth. Prohibition made the illegal sale and consumption of liquor unregulated and intense. The Moral Emptiness of the Upper Class.ĭecline of the American Dream Meaning: Life in the 1920s was exuberant and indulgent.Here’s a list of major themes in The Great Gatsby.

It is no coincidence that Fitzgerald made the Valley of Ashes a pit-stop for motorists traveling to the city from their homes in the wealthier neighborhoods as wealth plays as a prominent factor in the story’s themes. Here, the citizens live while the industrial ashes pollute both their living spaces as well as their hopes and dreams. The Valley of Ashes is a dirty neighborhood, polluted by industry in the city. This is a necessary neighborhood to drive through for the East and West Egg residents to drive into the city. These neighborhoods represent wealth, with East Egg being the home of families that have been wealthy for generations and West Egg being the home of the newly rich.īetween the East and West Egg neighborhoods is the Valley of Ashes, which is where the working class live and work. The story takes place in New York, with action occurring in the city, and in the fictional suburban neighborhoods of East Egg and West Egg.

Main Theme of The Great Gatsby Introduction
