The Great Gatsby Research Essay ‘11-12
Write a 5 paragraph essay which responds to one of the following prompts:
1. Between 1920 and 1929, automobile registration rose from 8 million to 23 million
in the United States. What effects did the invention of the automobile have on the
lives and attitudes of American people? Address issues such as mobility, pollution
(compare to pollution of horse powered vehicles), industry, roads, affordability,
etc. Think about the different meanings and connotations of these modern items
(speed, danger, mobility). What do cars (or other modern developments)
symbolize in The Great Gatsby?
2. “Wealth destroys even as it creates”, writes Roger Lewis about The Great Gatsby.
What part does the desire for wealth and the materialism and consumerism it
fosters play in The Great Gatsby? Compare the attitudes toward wealth and
consumerism in the 1920s to our society today.
3. For the most part, Fitzgerald paints his women as being maintained by men who
work, but women were becoming emancipated in many ways in the 1920s, and
the Nineteenth Amendment was made effective in 1920. Research gender roles
and women’s suffrage during the 1920s. How do these events play into The Great
Gatsby? Were traditional gender roles maintained, blurred, or inverted in some
way by the characters in the novel? Were any of the women in The Great Gatsby
“emancipated”? Choose three characters to describe in depth in your essay.
4. How do the characters and events in The Great Gatsby represent the disillusion
and cynicism that occurred in America following WWI?
Disillusion- to be free from illusion
Cynicism- an attitude of jaded negativity
5. How does The Great Gatsby reflect both the idealized American Dream, the
reality of the American Dream, and capture the essence of the 1920s?
6. Leisure time in the 1920s promoted the growth of professional sports and it has
been called the “Golden Age of Sports” and the “Golden Age of Spectators”.
Polo, football, golf and baseball are highlighted in The Great Gatsby, but many
are tainted by cheating in some way. What accomplishments were made in sport
in the twenties? Who were involved in these accomplishments? What scandals
occurred? Were minorities and women included in this “Golden Age of Sports?
Why do think Fitzgerald included those sports in this story? What is the role of
these sports in The Great Gatsby? How did Fitzgerald use them in a way that was
representative of the era?
7. Analyze and evaluate the accepted social and moral behavior exhibited by the
wealthy people in the novel and the wealthy people of the 1920’s. What was
Fitzgerald criticizing? In what ways do you see the same behaviors being
exhibited by wealthy people in today’s society?
8. Throughout the 1920s, crime and criminal activity increased. Using both
historical reference and The Great Gatsby, discuss how crime contributed to the
ideals associated with the restless decade, with emphasis on the immoral
behaviours these activities imply. Did these events and characters change
America for the better? Or did we today, in 2011, learn from the lack of morality
in the 1920s?