Role Of Prohibitionism In The Great Gatsby

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Dylan Payne Ms. Hoy English 11 12 March 2014 The 1920s Government: The True Alcoholics Prohibition was the period (1920–33) when the Eighteenth Amendment was in force and alcoholic beverages could not legally be manufactured, transported, or sold in the U.S. During the Eighteenth Amendment there was a big group of supporters called Prohibitionist; on the flip side it created many new problems like the Temperance Leagues. Prohibition was not what it was talked up to be and certainly did not boom the economy. Bootleggers, Blind Pigs, Doggeries, and Drug Store Whiskeys were major reasons for overcrowded jails and courthouses during the period. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby shows the effects of Prohibition, the different views of…show more content…
In The Great Gatsby the cat and mouse game is shown through the narrator Nick Caraway. Many citizens were starting to become very unfaithful to each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrates the cat and mouse game perfectly showing how people lie and also protect those people. Daisy stands up for Gatsby when people question were his wealth came from stating “He owned some drug-stores, a lot of drug-stores. He built them up himself” (Fitzgerald 108). During this part of the book Daisy is sanding for Gatsby’s word of truth to all the others with them. During this era drug-stores and pharmacies reached out standing numbers in the Prohibition Era (Lerner). The law said you couldn’t sell or distribute alcohol legally but many found out that you could have a doctor’s permission to get whiskey from a drug-store for medical reasons. “Speakeasies of the Prohibition Era” an article by Kathy Weiser explains how all speakeasies and anything else to do with illegal alcohol actions led to the unhealthy era of America. Connected with poverty, crime, corruption, social problems and tax burdens drinking was said to be the source of all evil (Weiser). Why America kept this Amendment in for thirteen years no one still knows because it did not make us a healthier place to live as a…show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This whole project of Prohibition was all a big fail. Today as a whole I don’t know why we would even attempt it like some places have. It needs to be a learning experience for our government today not to do what it did back then and spend tons of money on laws that are going to fail and cause more debt. In all the Prohibition Era was a down for America even though it might not say so, but it was a true down grade instead of a booming
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