The Great Gatsby

“My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer...writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.”

This quotation caught my eye because when reading it, I realized that what Fitzgerald says about works of writing is true. "The wise writer...writes for the youth of his own generation." Fitzgerald wrote and set The Great Gatsby during the Roaring Twenties, as the decade came to be called. During this decade, the stock market was on the rise, with seemingly no limit to how high it could go. The rich were becoming richer and the poor were becoming wealthy as well. This time period and the novel demonstrate both "old money," or money inherited through the family, and "new money," or money recently acquired throught the stock market or other means. This brings up the debate of whether "new money" can be considered "wealth," since there are many times when people who suddenly become rich gain the mindset that they have enough money to cover anything they would like to do and quickly end up bankrupt. This debate, the modern time period, and the many love stories intertwined in the story keep the story interesting for the young, especially for the young of the time period. However, there will always be some who disagree with an author's writings or motives for writing. Fitzgerald mentions this in his quotation. These critics of the next generation, as Fitzgerald states, may feel that writings are not appropriate for a specific audience or may have controversial statements or plots. However, these critics must consider in their analyses of writings the time period in which they were written and who the target audiences are/were. Fitzgerald also mentions that schoolmasters will forever use these writings afterward. This is so that present students would get an idea of what life was like in the past, a sort of history lesson from literature.