Can an author use a particular contemporary issue or a precise historical context as a means to convey a more timeless and universal matter?

Like all artists, authors are influenced by the events of their time and era. While Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was greatly inspired by the roaring twenties' historical context, Kipling's works captured the essence of colonialism and imperialism. Although these works belong to a specific moment in history, they continue to convey meaning throughout the following centuries.

Authors use a precise time frame in order to supply their literature with context and, to a certain extent, substance, yet a work's zeitgeist only represents a small aspect of its overall meaning. Although our world bears little resemblance to that of Rudyard Kipling's, his poetry has great value inasmuch as it teaches us about our history while also informing us about man's potential for hubris and thirst for power. Similarly, the 1920s were a vastly different era, yet Fitzgerald's classic novel is an important lesson on morals and desires as well as the gap between one's real and invented identity.