The Decadence of the Jazz Era

The Decadence Of The Jazz Era

"It is inevitable to be drawn back into human drama," said Caterine Vauban from the 2004 comedy I Heart Huckabees. "Suffering is inevitable." The human mind is in a constant search for disruption, rebellion, and irregularity. A mind at peace is never a mind at rest. When given too many choices, one will always chose to create tension rather than allow things to pass, to break rather than observe, and to hurt rather than to ignore. Pride without wealth is nobility. Wealth without pride is greed. The child of pride and wealth is a wretched prodigal materialism.

Americans face this issue day to day. The United States is a country of concerned, ignorant, but well-equipped wasters. Our excess of resources allows us to take for granted our expenditure of the world's necessities. In this ignorance and 'good fortune', for lack of genuine hardship, we feel the need to create our own--a main evil being our excessively influential media, pushing violence, stereotypes, physical insecurity, and premature sexuality leading to the highest rate of gun violence, therapy, family counseling, and teenage pregnancy.

These issues are far from new. The 1920s in America were a time of post-war flamboyance, extravagance, and the search for a constant pleasure. Wild dancing, music and the consumption of bootlegged alcohol characterize an era of a rich society unable to

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find a deeper meaning in life aside from their craving for an immediate satisfaction. An excess of money and resources in the 20s led to a depraved society, skillfully portrayed in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The novel is, in a sense, a study of sociology: a portrayal of how a seemingly satisfied person will always find something else to become excited about.

The character that the book is titled after, "The Great" Jay Gatsby, is a lonely, empty, but extremely wealthy man who takes a small pleasure in entertaining large groups of guests, most of which he has never made acquaintance with, and observing their revels from afar. Taking advantage of his extravagant parties, the guests drink his liquor and trash his property in their frivolity, spreading rumors about the host they have never known. These people seemingly have no notion about the reality of their lives, whiling away their time in a drunken stupor, finding no emotional depth in their relationships or passions.

Nick, the narrator of the book, tells the story as it unfolds: his frivolous sister Daisy, her fleeting love for Gatsby, her husband Tom Buchanan, Tom's mistress Myrtle, Myrtle's husband Wilson, and the fleeting, bored, love here and there that never amounts to more than a day of courtship to while away the wealth and excess of time. The emotions are chaotic: affairs and conflict are constantly spurring anger and dissent. Love is seen as another commodity and companions as possessions. Although this idiocy is expressed throughout the book through all the characters and their actions, the main

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example