It's all a Blur

The Roaring 20s was a time filled with mass culture, the Jazz Age, a consumer society, the "New Woman" aka flappers, and just an overall boost in wealth and materialism. A passage on page 40 in The Great Gatsby clearly portrayed the key aspects of this time period.

"By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived—no thin five-piece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings
between women who never knew each other’s names."

With the introduction of an orchestra, a feeling of elegance and class is given off. The full orchestra with various instruments displays the wealth flaunted at parties during this time. Many people were earning easy money off the stock market and living to their fullest. Also the scene with swimmers coming back from the beach before prepping for the party produces a casual and laid back mood in addition to the classiness and glam. The people knew how to enjoy themselves and let loose with dancing and wine, but at the same time they knew to act in accordance to their social class when events such as parties came. The "primary colors" portray how everyone wanted to be the first. They wanted to be known as the originators of whatever is was. The wanted to be the red, blue, and yellow of the party, not the orange, magenta, or green that are only the secondary colors. Their shawls are so great that those of Castile can only dream of it. This again shows their abundance of materialism. Everything is just a blur as the round of cocktails float in; people who see each other greet each other for the sake of formality and forget on the spot. This whole lavish scene of Gatsby's party captures the epitome of parties and the blur of human morality during the Roaring 20s.