Great Gatsby Context

Literary critic Sarah Churchwell argues that Fitzgerald uses the era’s glitz to expose its underlying hollowness, noting that “the story dazzles with excess only to reveal its emptiness beneath” (Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, 2013).

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was a leading figure of the Lost Generation, known for capturing the glamour and disillusionment of the 1920s. His life closely paralleled themes in The Great Gatsby:

• He experienced rapid literary success and extravagant living.

• His marriage to Zelda Sayre was famously turbulent, shaped by wealth, social aspiration, and instability.

• Fitzgerald was fascinated—and troubled—by America’s obsession with class, privilege, and material success.

The Great Gatsby is often read as his most autobiographical novel, reflecting his awareness of the gap between dazzling appearances and emotional fragility.

Fitzgerald was known for his intense love for his wife Zelda, his alcoholism, and his extravagant lifestyle. As their wealth and fame grew, the Fitzgeralds plunged into a reckless world of parties and hedonism. Fitzgerald’s need to earn more money to satisfy Zelda’s desires and maintain their lifestyle contributed to his increasing dependence on alcohol. Their marriage, however, was highly turbulent. While Fitzgerald was working to pay off debts, Zelda had an affair, episodes of which appear in his novel Tender Is the Night and her novel Save Me the Waltz. The full details of the affair remain unclear, but Fitzgerald’s romantic ideals were deeply damaged, even though the couple stayed together.

In 1930, Zelda suffered her first nervous breakdown, followed by another in 1932. After her recovery, the couple effectively ended their relationship. Fitzgerald kept writing throughout the 1930s, though his alcoholism increasingly disrupted his work.

According to Malcolm Cowley, Fitzgerald depicts a generation “grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken” (Exile’s Return, 1934).

The First World War created a generation of young Americans who returned home disillusioned and skeptical of old values. The 1920s—called the Jazz Age (a term Fitzgerald himself popularised)—was marked by:

• booming economic growth

• lavish parties, fast cars, and a new consumer culture

• a mix of excitement and moral uncertainty

Characters such as Gatsby and Nick are shaped by their wartime experiences. Gatsby reinvented himself after the war, while Nick’s reflective tone echoes the disenchantment typical of the post-war generation. The Jazz Age setting frames the novel’s obsession with pleasure, wealth, and spectacle. Although politics is not foregrounded in the plot, the novel reflects contemporary political anxieties of 1920s America, including:

• rise of xenophobia and restrictive immigration laws (e.g., the 1924 Immigration Act)

• concerns about “racial purity,” seen in Tom Buchanan’s obsession with pseudoscientific racist theories

• belief in maintaining old social hierarchies

These political undertones reveal the tension between America's image as a land of opportunity and its deep-seated fears of social change. Tom’s views exemplify a reactionary, elitist mindset determined to preserve inherited power.

Feminist critic Judith Fetterley argues that the novel reveals “the entrapment of women within male fantasies,” especially the ways Daisy is idealised yet constrained (The Resisting Reader, 1978).

The 1920s saw the rise of the New Woman: independent, socially liberated, fashionable, and sexually freer than previous generations. Women gained the right to vote in 1920, an important milestone that saw an increasing sense of female emancipation. Flappers, like Jordan Baker, represented modernity and autonomy, rejecting the strict paternal controls that had blighted the lives of the women before them.

However, traditional expectations of domesticity still constrained many women. Not all found the freedom that Jordan Baker experiences in the novel. Daisy embodies the conflict between freedom and social pressure. She is drawn to Gatsby’s romantic idealism but ultimately retreats to the safety and privilege of her marriage.

Jordan, by contrast, exemplifies the modern woman, independent but emotionally detached. Fitzgerald presents a society in transition, caught between liberation and patriarchal restraint.

Lionel Trilling famously argued that Gatsby represents “the American romantic hero,” whose aspiration is “corrupted by the very means of attaining it” (from his essay on Fitzgerald, 1945).

At the heart of the novel lies a critique of the American Dream—the idea that anyone can succeed through hard work and determination. Gatsby is a self-made man who rises from poverty to immense wealth. Yet his dream is corrupted by materialism, criminal enterprises, and social barriers he cannot overcome. Old-money elites like Tom and Daisy demonstrate that power and privilege remain hereditary, not earned.

The novel suggests that the American Dream has transformed from a vision of self-improvement into a pursuit of excess and illusion, ultimately leading to moral decay and personal tragedy.

Walter Benn Michaels argues that Fitzgerald uses crime to reveal how capitalism and corruption merge, showing that “legitimacy and illegitimacy blur in the pursuit of wealth” (The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism, 1987).

The Great Gatsby is set during Prohibition (1920–1933), when the sale and production of alcohol were illegal. This law unintentionally fuelled:

• organised crime

• bootlegging

• speakeasies and hidden nightlife

Gatsby’s fortune is closely tied to illegal liquor distribution, exposing the blurred boundary between legitimate wealth and criminal enterprise in the 1920s. Characters like Meyer Wolfsheim symbolise the underworld networks that thrived in this era. Fitzgerald uses this context to question the legitimacy of wealth and the ethics of the self-made myth.