PERSONAL REVIEW

I enjoyed Fitzgerald’s book, however I was saddened that this was most likely accurate description of the 1920s. His generation was consumed with themselves and with money and material items, especially as the book was set in New York City, one of the cities most known for this lifestyle of extravagance. Fitzgerald makes amazing critiques on society in the book and shows how a life filled solely with extravagance leads to sorrow and no true fulfillment in life. He reveals his opinions through beautiful paragraphs filled with figurative language that so accurately describe the time he lived in. After reading this book, I am interested to learn more about this era and if this lifestyle applied to the entire country, or to the rest of the world. It is very sad that this was the reaction that the population of United States had toward the tragic end of World War I. I have also read another work by Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, and I enjoyed it also very much. This book also focuses on the lifestyle of the 1920s man and similarly to the great Gatsby, no characters in the book truly find happiness at the end. The ending especially of this book is written exceptionally well, and his thoughts and ideas are expressed so clearly in his writing. These paragraphs about the period of greed in the United States and New York especially made me question my own life and evaluate how much time I spend thinking about myself rather than other people. Again, I am very glad that I read this book, as it was one of the few that I have enjoyed throughout high schol’s assigned reading lists. Th ending was very sad to me, because I thought Gatsby, although he represented greed and wealth, was an honorable man that only acquired that much money and possessions to impress his one true love, Daisy.