Back Into the Roaring '20s by Amanda

Back Into the Roaring '20s by Amanda - July 2013 Scholarship Essay

Books assigned to read in my English classes never really excited me. They were old, slow and sometimes, downright depressing. The repertoire throughout my high school years included Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, and Things Fall Apart. I couldn’tstand these books. Luckily though, one book stood out to me: The Great Gatsby.This book was my favorite, not because all of the previous qualities of books that I mentioned are absent, but because the book had many different aspects to it that “spiced” it up and was more appealing to me. More importantly, the plot is interestingtoo. I am also a sucker for quotes and when I need to find a meaningful quote, I need not look further than this book. I would call it one of my favorite books of all time. I was interested in the plot because it is about a plain Jane kind of guy who finds himself in a world that he isn’t used to. That in itself is intriguing because of the lifestyle that the people around him live. Also, it isn’t every day that you read about someone wealthy not having everything that they wanted. There is also some mystery and suspense.Yes, this book was relatively old; it was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the early 1920’s and published in 1925. The fact of the matter is, I don’t mind that this book is old because of how it portrays the Roaring ‘20s. The parties, the music, the outfits and the culture of the time when standards of living in America were rising was interesting to read about, especially because it was written by someone who lived then and enjoyed that sort of life for a time period. Yes, sometimes the book is slow. There isn’t a great amount of dialogue and it’s mostly description. But the descriptions are dazzling and while it’s not a fast paced book, the fantastic and vivid descriptions make you want to keep reading and reading. On the plus side, the Great Gatsby also has gripping parts that read like a suspense novel or an oddly addictive soap opera. I couldn’t put the book down.Yes, the end of the book is what I would call downright depressing. Gatsby is in love with a girl and did everything in his power to win her back from her cheating, rotten husband. Unfortunately, the drama and vices of others ruined this. In the end, Gatsby did not get the girl and ultimately was fatally shot. There’s nothing more depressing to me than that, especially because I was on Gatsby’s side; I was rooting for him to achieve the “American Dream.”That is why The Great Gatsby was my favorite reading assignment for school.