The 1920s and 1930s represent two decades of our country's history that are very closely linked but extremely different from an economic point of view. The Great Gatsby is set during the Roaring '20s, a time of extravagant parties and attempts to find happiness after the First World War. On the other hand, The Grapes of Wrath is set in the 1930s, while America is suffering from the Great Depression and people are struggling. leaving their homes and lives to find success and work in California. Although the times were very different economically, both were dominated by people striving for the American dream of wealth and social status in an effort to achieve happiness, success, and a better life. In the 1920s people wanted to escape the terrors of war, and in the 1930s they were trying to survive the devastation of the Great Depression. Both The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath do an extraordinary job of portraying people's desires for the American dream and more specifically the prevalence of failure rather than success that came as a result of their efforts. The Great Gatsby portrays a period in American history when much of the nation wants nothing more than to find happiness through money and forget the horrors of war. People who come to Gatsby's parties rarely know him. They are looking for a fun night that will help them forget about the war or their pointless lives, even if just for a few hours. Gatsby has no problem with this because he only throws parties as a means to meet his long lost love, Daisy. Daisy's dependence on wealthy, prestigious men, and Gatsby's devious attempts to obtain it, illustrate the American belief that money and extravagance are the easiest means to find success and happiness. The following statement from page 149 strongly illustrates Gatsby's belief that his only means of charming Daisy would be through deception. "He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her in under false pretenses. I don't mean to say that he had bartered with his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he had let her believe that he was a more or less of her own social class - who was fully capable of caring for her, in reality she had no such facilities - she had no wealthy family behind her and was responsible for the whims of an impersonal government to explode anywhere of the world (p.