. Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com, allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. Myrtle mentions this with regard to her husband, George, whom she mistook for someone of better breeding and hence greater prospects: I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasnt fit to lick my shoe. Similarly, Gatsbys pursuit of Daisy is bound up with class. The American Dream refers to a shared set of ideals that guide the spirit of the United States. Zeitz, Joshua. In fact, it seems that the accident may have brought them closer. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. . So while Daisy is materialistic and is drawn to Gatsby again due to his newly-acquired wealth, we see Gatsby is drawn to her as well due to the money and status she represents. PDF nGLih - oup.com.au She is passionate about improving student access to higher education. When you combine this level of mass destruction with the fact that most of the war was a territorial stalemate (no army advanced, no army withdrew - they were just locked in a horrible tie), it's easy to see how unaccountable the 40 million deaths the war caused were. Cultural Context for The Great Gatsby by Kaitlin Liguori Tracing historical development in the US, Scherer and Ross inform that only 16 percent of homes in America had electricity by 1912 (82). Most of the characters reveal themselves to be highly materialistic, their motivations driven by their desire for money and things: Daisy marries and stays with Tom because of the lifestyle he can provide her, Myrtle has her affair with Tom due to the privileged world it grants her access to, and Gatsby even lusts after Daisy as if she is a prize to be won. student. Daisy, for her part, only begins her affair with Gatsby after a very detailed display of his wealth (via the mansion tour). LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Gatsby, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Historical context: the giant arm propping up the baby that is your argument. Although the story is told with grace and beauty, its events are intended to be shocking. The Great Gatsby. Fitzgeralds characters that each selfishly overcome different hardships with corrupt solutions represent the immoral mindset of success-hungry people in the 1920s proving that the culture of Fitzgeralds time was accurately mirrored in his novel. When Nick spies on them through the window, he reports that there was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. Because of their elite class status, Tom and Daisy share a belief that they are immune to the consequences of their actions.