The Roaring Twenties was a time of parties and illegal practices; it was a time of change. This change affected society as a whole- both how the people viewed their lives as well as the way they viewed the importance of morality. Before the Roaring Twenties the American people were very traditional in their values. Their values included simple things such as being true to your spouse, raising your family with love and attention and earning an honest living. In the twenties, however, these traditional values seemed to be devalued. This was the time when things such as the bootlegging business became very popular. The Great Gatsby helped to portray the moral degradation happening throughout the time in which it takes place. The Great Gatsby exposes the moral decadence of the Roaring Twenties through its three main characters, Gatsby, Daisy and Tom.
             "The parties were bigger...the pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser..." (Rayburn) During the twenties, peoples morals seemed to be a lot looser than they had been previous to that decade. The work week went from being a sixty hour week to being a forty-eight hour week giving people more free time to do what they wanted. Many people began to party and drink more, as these things brought everyone together. The social world experienced a lot of change during this era. Girls and young women started wearing more make-up and shorter skirts which only a few years before had been worn only by women of ill repute. As Rayburn points out, "Dresses were loose and skimpy; swimsuits were tight and skimpy-the result of both changing morality and an explosion in new industrially fabricated synthetic materials..." Another indicator of this change in morality was that sex became more common as well as more discussed. Rayburn notices that "...youth freely discussed sex-if not always so freely performed it." Illegal businesses like bootlegging became more...