The Great Gatsby: How It Applies to Modern Society
The Great Gatsby: How it Applies to Modern Society The people in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby are very alike the people in our generation today. They’re alike in the way they depict racism, irresponsibility, and corruption. The two generations however; also share people who display integrity and honesty. The two generations show irresponsibility and corruption through many characters like Myrtle, Meyer Wolfshiem and Tom. After Myrtle bought the dog she had taken no care after the dog. She never walked it, didn’t consistently feed it, and the dog was later found lying around by himself.
Tom was irresponsible and prejudice towards other races which were different from his own. His Irresponsibility was shown when he was having an affair with Myrtle and not staying faithful to Daisy. Tom’s prejudice was revealed when he said “nowadays people being by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. ” In today’s society it seems like it’s every other day where someone is discriminated against because they are thought to be inferior for skin color, religion, etc.
Also during the roaring 20’s there was many gangs and mob leaders like the terrorizing Al Capone who were corrupt with power. He was a racketeer who had many wars with other gangs. Today there is also a lot of gang violence going on today between all sorts of different cliques and they all search for the power that Al Capone once had. Even though there are a significant amount of people who are irresponsible and discriminate there are also a large number of people who act with integrity and help others with enormous generosity.
Everyone was first afraid of Gatsby because they thought he was a killer but turns out he was a compassionate man. When Nick says “They’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” you feel the same towards him because his love for Daisy was very important to him. He takes the blame for Daisy killing Myrtle even though he knows he can be taken away to jail for the rest of his life. There are people still today that will fight for their friends because friendship is vowed to be very important in the life of very human. As you can see the adult’s shown in the Great Gatsby (1920’s) are similar to the adults that live today. Many portray racism and are irresponsible; however they are also many who act with honesty, integrity and compassion. I believe the two generations are similar for the common traits they share. Because there is a century between these two generations many would believe that a lot of change has undergone but in reality not much change has happened. Everything around the people has changed but them as people have not.
