The Jazz Age (roaring twenties) and what role it had on Fitzgerald's perceptions of America.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's
perceptions of the roaring twenties can probably be best seen in chapter three, the
chapter that contains the elaborate descriptions of one of Gatsby's
parties.

Nick says:

readability="6">

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers
came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a
Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden.
(44)

The buffet tables are
"garnished with glistening hors d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of
harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold" 44). 
Extravagance is also evident in the bar, which is stocked with "gins and liquors and
with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know
one from another (44), and the band is no band, but an orchestra, with "a whole pit full
of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and
high drums" (44).

And the people at the party appear to be
wealthy, to have a great deal of idle time, to be freeloaders, to come to the party even
though they are not invited, and to be extremely reckless and
careless. 

The majority of people at the party "were not
invited" (45) and "conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated
with amusement parks" (45).  Lucille is one example:  "I never care what I do, so I
always have a good time " (45).  And recklessness and carelessness are further
demonstrated in the final party scene with its drunk driving and wrecked car and hurt
driver and gawking spectators.  This, apparently, reveals the author's perception of the
roaring twenties.   

The novel as a whole shows the
American Dream to be a sordid myth--one achieves it only at great personal and ethical
costs, and it is in some ways an illusion and hollow.