The Great Gatsby Final

The

Great Gatsby

Final Paper

Jacob Hawk 3/26/08

CP English 11 Final Paper

Jay Gatsby started running booze during prohibition, just like the southerners started running moonshine. You had to have a quick car and a skilled and fast driver to run alcohol in the 1920’s. Both boot legging during prohibition and after in the 30’s and 40’s tie in with Gatsby’s wealth and the start of car racing. Gatsby’s love of expensive and fast cars could have been derived from his old habit of running illegal booze. In fact after Gatsby’s death he gets a call saying one of the men got caught running “shine”. Gatsby was most defiantly connected with the running of alcohol, which contributed to the rise of stock car racing.

Microbreweries were producing moonshine and other alcoholic beverages up and down the East Coast starting at North Carolina. Both Gatsby and the moonshine runners of the south had to have a way to elude the cops. The Gatsby trade was more or less under ground with little being known of who was in charge. Where as the southern moonshine runners went by two rules, one if they got paid you got the product, and two who ever had the fastest car got more business, hence how the sport of stock car racing got it’s start. Not only were the runners breaking the law by boot legging, they were also breaking the law by speeding to elude the cops. All the top mobsters were hiring southern drivers to run alcohol across the mid-west and eastern