What social phenomenon did the film The Great Gatsby reflect in the United States in the 1920s?

Fitzgerald vividly reproduces the social atmosphere of the "lively 1920s". Before The Great Gatsby, American novels mostly described carriages and ships, and cars played a negligible role. But in Fitzgerald's novels, cars play a very important role. Nick Callaway, the narrator of the novel, points out at the beginning that he owns an "old Dodge". With the development of the plot, we will gradually find that Jay Gatsby owns an ivory Rolls Royce, Daisy drives a white sports car when she was a girl, and Tom Buchanan, who is keen on cycling, also owns a blue sports car. George wilson, the husband of Buchanan's mistress, is the owner of the auto repair shop. Even the most critical plot in the novel is related to cars: Daisy drives Gatsby's Rolls Royce and kills Buchanan's mistress Mei Duo. It can be said that The Great Gatsby endowed the automobile with unprecedented importance, and as pointed out earlier, the rise of the automobile industry was the most iconic economic phenomenon in the 1920s.

Fitzgerald's writing is definitely not unintentional, and the same situation applies to the telephone. In The Great Gatsby, the word "telephone" appears 65 times, which is amazing for a novella with only 9 chapters. Like cars, the telephone has greatly changed the way people communicate with each other. It enables people in different spaces to communicate in real time, which is like magic for those who have just touched it. Fitzgerald arranged for Gatsby to retire often at banquets to answer the phone calls from Chicago or Philadelphia, precisely to strengthen the mysterious atmosphere hanging over his head.

The Great Gatsby not only cleverly embeds the two most representative objects of that era into itself, but also naturally accommodates the new social trends of that era-mainly the independence of women and the emergence of new family ethics. Jordan Becker, who once fascinated the narrator Nick Callaway, is the embodiment of a new woman. She is a golfer, and her aunt is the only relative in her family. She is never bound by family affairs, but takes part in competitions everywhere for a living. Even her appearance shows the masculine tendency that was popular in that year. She is "a slim, flat-chested girl, standing with her head held high and her posture very much like that of a young military school student". As for her behavior, Nick "found that she was wearing an evening dress, no matter what she wore, it was like wearing sportswear". By the way, it is worth mentioning that the name comes from the Jordan brand sports car and Baker brand electrical appliances that were all the rage in the United States that year-even her name is a symbol of the new era! Even Mei Duo's sister Catherine is independent: she once went to Europe across the Atlantic with a female friend.

In the seventh chapter of the novel, when Gatsby and Buchanan showdown, Buchanan's impassioned statement well sums up this ideological change scattered throughout the book: "The most fashionable thing now is to stand by and let unknown people have sex with your wife?" Well, if this is the fashion, you can think that I am out of date ... These days, people begin to despise family life and family system. I think the rules will be abolished and even blacks and whites can get married. "

The prohibition system, which had a great influence on the society at that time, was also ubiquitous in The Great Gatsby. According to Buchanan's investigation, Gatsby can live a luxurious life because he is engaged in smuggling alcoholic beverages. A banquet with money from unknown sources can actually be regarded as an allegory of "the lively 1920s".

In a word, just like Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence in the gilded age, The Great Gatsby is the only way for today's readers to understand and perceive the American jazz age. A single novel defines an era, which is the great Gatsby.