Greed and Envy: An Analysis of the Consumer-Oriented Society of the 1920s Imagine a society where people do what they want to achieve prosperity . F. Scott Fitzgerald's most famous and respected novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, is one of the most insightful descriptions of American life in the 1920s. It has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The novel tells the story of fabulously wealthy people floating aimlessly through life in the 1920s. People were driven to acquire as much material possessions as possible. People didn't let morality get in the way of their pursuit of happiness. The color green serves as a metaphor for the greed and envy of the consumer-driven 1920s. The 1920s were a decade of rapid expansion, wealth, envy and greed. This is a time during which life seemed to move quickly forward. Its basis was money and the extravagances that money could buy. America has undergone radical change and social reform. America is becoming more and more industrialized, Americans live more in cities than in the countryside. The development of technologies such as radios, mo...