The Great Gatsby, The 1920s, and a Drifting Era The decade of the 1920s was a transitional, restless era. Moral values werechanged dramatically after the first World War, creating a time in which people wereadrift, wandering through life, and wondering what was in their future. This restlessnessand drifting feeling that many people experienced throughout the 1920s is skillfullycaptured by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his 1920s novel, The Great Gatsby. Through hisdescription of landscapes in this novel, Fitzgerald incorporates a floating, unsettled tone,which was the tone of the 1920s. In order to add emphasis to the theme of drifting,Fitzgerald tells his story through the narrative of an unstable drifter, Nick Carraway. Thedescriptions of these landscapes are seen through the eyes and voice of someone who hasnever been able to settle down himself. In The Great Gatsby, descriptions of specificlandscapes, such as Daisy and Toms house, the train station, and Gatsbys party create avery significant theme: the 1920s and the people living in that era were adrift, roamingaimlessly through life.The first scene in which the floating theme is encountered is the description ofTom and Daisys house when Nick first comes to visit. Through Nicks eyes as he firstglances around the parlor, Fitzgerald creates images of flowing curtains, and metaphorscomparing the carpet to an open sea. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains inat one end and out on the other like pale flags...and then rippled over the wine-coloredrug, making a shadow on it as the wind does the sea (12). He describes the large sofa asthe only stationary object in the room (12). The portrayal of the two women, DaisyBuchanan and Jordan Baker, gives the most effective sense of floating in the entiredescription of the landscape. Two young women were buoyed up as though upon ananchored balloon...their dresses were fluttering as if they had just been blown back from ashort flight (1...
