Alcohol

=Alcohol =

====**From 1920 to 1933, the production and transportation of alcohol was strictly banned and illegal in the United States in an era known as prohibition. Fitzgerald sets his novel in this time period, the "Roaring Twenties", where despite prohibition, alcohol is omnipresent. Ironically, a time which tried to eliminate the corruption and filth of society was undermined by creating a system which enabled a highly profitable black market for alcohol. Within F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel __The Great Gatsby__, alcohol points out the materialistic tendencies of the time's society. Jay Gatsby, the title character, constructs a new life for himself based on bootlegging (smuggling alcohol) in order to live up to his image of his love, Daisy, and much like the failure of prohibition, his construction of a perfect person is destroyed by duplicity. In __The Great Gatsby__ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, alcohol embodies the excess and hypocrisy of the 20's and represents the true nature of what Gatsby attempts to be in the eyes of Daisy.**====



**Left:** Alcohol is poured into the sewers due to Prohibition. **Right:** A bootlegger.

 * ====**Alcohol creates situations which highlight the materialism and atmosphere of, as Fitzgerald himself has dubbed, as the "Roaring Twenties".**====
 * ====="...champagne was served in glasses of finger-bowls." (Fitzgerald, 31)=====
 * =====Champagne has connotations of luxury.=====
 * =====Exemplifies excess of Gatsby's party, in quantity and cost.=====
 * =====Finger-bowls normally used to wash hands. Consumption presented as unsanitary and uncivilized. Contributes to separate the nouveau-riche from the 'old money', West Egg from East Egg.=====
 * =====Over the course of the party scene, alcohol plays the primary role for the transformation from formal to chaos.=====
 * =====Behavior degrades over course of party, people spread out, are rude, and throw tantrums. Alcohol reveals guest's immaturity and true sentiments towards Gatsby.=====
 * =====No one is a true friend of Gatsby's, they are all for show in Gatsby's attempts to woo Daisy and Gatsby is just a tool for them to have a good time.=====
 * =====" 'Who is this Gatsby anyhow?' demanded Tom suddenly 'Some big bootlegger?' " (Fitzgerald, 69)=====
 * =====Ironic and hypocritical, Tom critical of Gatsby's profession when he himself consumes Gatsby's product and attends his party.=====
 * =====Practice of making and selling alcohol is frowned upon, yet no one bats an eye to actual drinking.=====
 * =====Reveals Tom's suspicions and Nick's hesitance to believe in rumors.=====
 * =====Tom separates the 'newly rich' from the ancestral rich. Although Gatsby has reached status, he still can't be an equal to Daisy in the eyes of others.=====
 * =====Lack of alcohol in Valley of Ashes=====
 * =====Further distinguishes excess of West/East egg and New York.=====
 * =====Depicts the lower classes as being left behind in a time of 'prosperity'.=====
 * =====Trapped in the waste of society. The 'ashes' are pollution from factories.=====
 * =====Myrtle and Wilson want to get away.=====
 * =====Myrtle and Wilson want to get away.=====


 * ====**Amidst Gatsby's folly to forge himself into the perfection he views in Daisy, the means of his transformation becomes the undermining of his image.**====
 * ====="I wondered if the fact that he (Gatsby) was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests" (Fitzgerald, 33)=====
 * =====Gatsby doesn't drink, yet surrounds himself with people who do.=====
 * =====Despite his efforts to integrate himself into this world, he can't fit in.=====
 * =====The self-imposed identity of Gatsby, the bootlegger, is not who he truly is, James Gatz.=====
 * =====Ironic, means of his ascension don't appeal to him, his aspiration to be a high class individual, while achieved on one level, is an illusion rather than reality.=====
 * ====="The well disciplined child took to her nurse's hand...Gatsby took up his drink." (Fitzgerald, 75)=====
 * =====Only time Gatsby //ever// drinks in the novel.=====
 * =====Just been introduced to the child of Daisy and Tom.=====
 * =====New side of Daisy revealed to Gatsby and makes him think twice about the morals of still being in love with her.=====
 * =====Much like the shallow, materialistic traits, compared to the "grotesqueness of a rose", Gatsby discovers before dying.=====
 * =====Alcohol presents Gatsby's stressed reaction and tension of the situation.=====
 * =====Much like presence of heat in passage.=====
 * ====="I picked him up for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn't far wrong." (Fitzgerald, 85)=====
 * =====Tom reveals that Gatsby is achieved his status by smuggling alcohol when Gatsby challenges his claim to Daisy.=====
 * =====Tom feels threatened and is defensive.=====
 * =====Avoids addressing actually topic and instead tries to discredit Gatsby.=====
 * =====Daisy's image of Gatsby is torn.=====
 * =====Ironic that his method to appeal to Daisy eventually is the undoing of his purpose.=====
 * =====Gatsby is judged for what he does rather than who he is. (Materialism)=====


 * Note that I have a different edition of the novel and page numbers may vary.

Images:

//Prohibition in the 1920's//. Web. 5 Sep 2010. .

"Bootlegger." //The Great Gatsby//. Web. 5 Sep 2010. .

If interested in looking at the effects of alcohol in __The Great Gatsby__ on your own, note that the majority of references are located in Chapters 3 and 7