Imani McBeanMrs. GoldenCOMP 10119 April 2015 Rise and Fall of the 1920s “Those were the best of times; those were the worst moments." This quote from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens can be used to summarize the hustle and bustle of American life in the 1920s. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a novel of love, loss, false hopes, and broken dreams, is fittingly set in the post-war era of the "Roaring Twenties." Here the rich were seen as blessed and favored, while the poor were considered evil, sinful, or even cursed. Mixing between social classes was rare and despised. Thus was born the reason why Gatsby had to cheat his way to material wealth to win his true prize, Daisy's love. The Great Gatsby could be called a satirical critique of the American way of life that showed the risks some would take for fame and fortune, even to death. The wild, carefree, rowdy, and radical behavior of this period in American history was partly a result of Prohibition (The times, like Daisy, were constantly changing and had no solid foundation (hence the impending Great Depression). Daisy was reckless. and she even claimed this recklessness for herself: “That's the best thing a girl could be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (Fitzgerald 17) stupid, she didn't know how to do better killed Myrtle Wilson while driving, and in her silence she also killed Gatsby The most desperate part is that she managed to continue living in her state of oblivion as if nothing had ever happened. This was the attitude of most years twenty. Selfish ambition ran rampant throughout the decade. People only wanted what they could take, and giving back was like a kind of foreigner