People Of East Egg example essay topic

Conflicting Perspective The 1920's prove to be an era that brought around some of the greatest influences and some of the greatest controversies. In the 1920's, there began to be a schism in the beliefs of prohibition, personal freedoms, and class separation. Traditionalist believed that people were running ramped drink and being promiscuous. Modernists were out to seek personal freedoms, such drinking, sexual experimental, women coming out of their stereotypical roles of being reserved and prude. Classes divided because some people had inherited wealth and other had work hard to earn their money. In The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, these controversies that divided the generations of the 1920's included prohibition, and the right to personal freedoms and compares and contrast new money versus old money and modernism versus traditionalism.

In The Great Gatsby, there is social dividing line that separates the aristocracy and those who are "would be" aristocracy. That diving is visible as well as invisible. It is visible in the form of "West-Egg" and "East-Egg", which are areas of Manhattan that are divided between the people with New Money, West-Egg, and the people have had money for generations, East-Egg. People of the east look down on the people of the west as gaudy in every aspect, their homes are over elaborate, as describe by the narrator Nick Carraway. "My own house was an eye - sore, but it was a small eye-sore and it had been overlooked" (9-10 Fitzgerald). But the homes of east were not described in such as way they were "the white palaces of fashionable East - Egg" (10 Fitzgerald).

Thus dividing in such a way that was as visible as the sound that ran between them. A more invisible dividing line was the snobbish way that Tom Buchanan treated everyone. He dismissed his own wife at times, to go and be with his mistress, whom he treated like property. Tom, one day on the way into New York, forces Nick off the train into the Valley of the Ashes, to go and retrieve his mistress. Demandingly Tom says to Myrtle "I want to see you... Get on the next train" (30 Fitzgerald).

And that was that no contestation, Nick stood there almost dumbfounded, and the arrogance of Tom was very apparent. This was a display that drew an invisible in between the people of East In 1920 the 18th amendment came into effect, outlawing and banding the sale, manufacturing and transport of alcohol. Alcohol is very present in the Great Gatsby, and works as a catalyst towards the end of the novel. At all the parties that Nick attends at Gatsby's house and the one at Tom's apartment there is alcohol present, even though it is illegal. "In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another" (Fitzgerald 44). People came to these parties and got completely drunk, to the point of make themselves into spectacles and fools.

Even though the people of East -Egg were snobby toward the people of West-Egg they still attended Gatsby's parties, and anyone else came who thought they should be there. "I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited - they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door" (45 Fitzgerald). It was like the parties that occur today, everyone meet at someone's home and then caravan to where there would be alcohol. In history, prohibition was a failed attempt at what was thought to be a progressive reform.

The modernist of the period did not feel that prohibition was a progressive reform as it was made out to be, they felt that it was an infringement on their personal freedoms. "I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library" (Fitzgerald 50). The character Owl Eyes states here that he's been drunk for a week in the middle of 1922. Prohibition was well into effect and yet here is someone who feels that they can drink regardless of alcohol being outlawed. But the traditionalist argued, "Many Americans viewed the legal prohibition of alcohol as a progressive reform, not a denial of individual freedoms" (Henretta 651). If the modernists of the time felt it was not a denial of personal freedoms than they would not have continued to drink and would have given it up, upon the ratification of the 18th amendment.

One of the major aspects of the 1920's is the ability to make choices for oneself, and have the freedom to do what one wants. One of those choices that appears in the book is sexual experimental. Tom has having an affair with a married women, who chose to go with him. "So Tam Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York - or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car" (Fitzgerald 31).

Tom is very much the traditionalist, he is having this elaborate affair, where he has purchased an apartment and a little puppy dog for Myrtle, but cannot be seen with her. Myrtle on the other had is explore her sexual and personal freedom with Tom. She is married, she is going off to the city to have an affair, and people such as her own sister know about it. Myrtle is not affair of society and what it says about her; she even takes the risk of chanting Tom's wife's name, "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!

... I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai-" (Fitzgerald 41). And like societies response to an affair, finding it unacceptable, Tom breaks Myrtle's nose. History took the standpoint that the government and traditionalist are very much against this kind of sexual freedom.

"The government undertook a far-reaching sex education program to enlighten both men and women about sexual dangers of sexual activity and the value of "social purity" (Henretta 651). The thought was that the more people knew about the risks of their personal freedoms that they might choose to take a more traditionalist approach to the choices. But the modernist of their era continued their promiscuity and even created some birth controls, which was aided by Margaret Sanger. People continued to do what they please and then prohibition was repealed by the 21st amendment. The 1920's brought to society the things people may have felt but could not due to social constraints. Prohibition allowed people to go out and find the alcohol, since it could not be found elsewhere.

Personal freedoms such as drink and sexual experimentation were expressed in full force of the modernists. There was a very aristocratic approach to the way people viewed and treated other people, there was much class segregation. That segregation was due to new money versus old money and traditionalism versus modernism. The twenties was a "roaring" era full of new ideas, gadgets, gizmos, consumer items, drinking, sex, and fast-paced times.

An era that has shaped the way the United States is today.