Skip to main content

In the book The Great Gatsby, how does your knowledge of "The Lost Generation," the changing role of women in society, the advent of the car, and...

The phrase "The Lost Generation" refers to that generation that came of age during World War I, especially to those artists and writers of this era.  Many of them fought in the war, an experience that disillusioned them about the world forever.  Afterwards, they always seemed restless and never content.  In fact, Nick says as much in the first chapter.  When he returned from the Great War, he "came back restless," no longer seeing the Midwest as "the warm center of the world [but rather] the ragged edge of the universe," and he felt the need to move East.  Such discontent and disillusionment is typical of this generation, and we can see it in Daisy too.  The world became a very different place after the war, and it makes most characters a great deal more cynical than they were before. 


Further, as women's roles were beginning to change, some women who felt beholden to the old rules began to feel a discontentment as well (and many men who disapproved of the new roles did too).  Times were changing, and fast, though someone like Jordan, a single woman of means, had a great deal more freedom than someone like Daisy, a married mother who seems to have taken on the traditional role before she realized that there might be other options.  Her cynicism -- and her husband's disapproval of Jordan's independence -- are emblematic of the time and help us to understand their characters as well.


With the advent of the car, characters gained a great deal more freedom than they had always had.  It suddenly became possible to go far, to go fast, and to go now.  The war seemed to make the world a bigger place, and now people want to see it (like Nick).  People can see more and go more places than they could before.  The sense of freedom that accompanied the automobile was, perhaps, perfectly timed given the sense of futility and sense of being trapped that so many in the Lost Generation (and so many women) felt.


Finally, the Roaring Twenties seem to be synonymous with jazz music, illegal alcohol, and rule-breaking.  Whereas things had seemed so formal and buttoned-up prior to the war, the war itself seems to have given everyone license to go a little crazy.  Further, for a generation of people who feel lost and disillusioned, the ability to forget all one's troubles and worries and go to big, loud parties and drink themselves into oblivion probably felt like a boon.  So many people drink to forget or at least dull their emotional pain, and the Roaring Twenties offered ample opportunity for that.  It helps to explain why alcohol was so integral to every single function at the Buchanans and all of Gatsby's parties.  


All of these factors help readers to understand what could be going on in the minds of the characters, even if they are unable to say so themselves.  The war had so many psychological and emotional effects, especially on the generation that actually did the fighting (The Lost Generation), that keeping these in mind as we read helps us to know the characters perhaps even better than they know themselves.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more