The Great Gatsby

Historical Context and Significance

«The Great Gatsby» by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1925, is one of the most outstanding works of 20th-century American literature. It is a novel about the disillusionment and destruction of the American Dream, depicted through the lives and relationships of its characters in the 1920s—a period known as the Roaring Twenties. The book describes the emptiness and vice inherent in the upper society living on the East Coast of the United States, as well as the tragedy of a man striving to regain his lost love. The novel did not receive recognition during Fitzgerald's lifetime, but after his death, «The Great Gatsby» gained classic status, influencing many generations of readers and writers, as well as pop culture, becoming a symbol of the era and the tumultuous 1920s.