Amory Blaine : A True American Character

The life of F. Scott Fitzgerald was deeply divided, in that his early successes in the 1910’s and 1920’s contrast noticeably with the years full of personal happenings and

     The final page offers much of Fitzgerald’s perspective, and it is wonderfully summed up in the final sentence of the book.

Fitzgerald depicts 1920’s America as an age of decline in traditional social and moral values; primarily evidenced by the cynicism, greed and the relentless yet empty pursuit of prosperity and pleasure that various characters in The Great Gatsby exhibit. He presents a society in which uninhibited consumerism, materialism and an all-pervading desire for wealth have perverted the previously righteous qualities of the American Dream, corrupting it in the process.

Fitzgerald superbly describes the era due to the fact that he himself lived a life of grandeur, he married his wife Zelda Sayre in 1920 and had a “raucous honeymoon in New York City’s famous Biltmore Hotel” (F. Scott Fitzgerald: An American Icon). Soon after the wedding, they rose significantly on the social scene of New York. Fitzgerald originated from St. Paul’s, Minnesota, he attended Princeton University and was a great writer from an early age, he enlisted in the Navy during The Great War. Five years into his highly dysfunctional marriage he conceived one of America’s most significant works of literature. The splendid story Fitzgerald composed closely mirrored his own life, it is because of this that he was able to accurately depict the feelings and behavior of an era. Many sought pleasure through the form of materialism and happily indulged in the vices of mankind, Fitzgerald beautifully captures this all whilst enduring personal hardships of his own. He lived the life of a sensualist, just like the characters he wrote about in his magnum opus. Fitzgerald’s participation in setting the atmosphere of the decade and embodying the Roaring Twenties is the gift that he has bestowed to American literature, without it there wouldn’t be a text that can as precisely sum up some of America’s greatest years. Another major literary figure in the 1920s, though they had their differences, was a close friend of Fitzgerald nonetheless.

Imagine a world where one side of the equator was filled with wealth, happiness, and content. Now imagine the other side of the equator filled with poverty, sadness, and death. These two completely opposing halves enhance each other's descriptions and make one think of each side more deeply about the concept. This same scenario is also present in one of America’s favorite novels based upon the 1920s and the American dream. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald juxtaposes two contrasting places, the Valley of Ashes and New York City, using imagery to magnify the difference between reality and a fantasy, which is central to the meaning of the work.

In conclusion, Fitzgerald uses this tragic story to express his feeling about the American Dream of the American people during the 1920's. The characters in the novel are being used to reflect the gradual demoralization of the people in the society. Every person living in this

The 20th century had seen many changes in all spheres of life and the literature of this age is not an exception to this fact. All the developments of science and technology and rise of materialism directly influenced the writers of this age. F. Scott Fitzgerald was leading American novelist of 20th century who was very much influenced by the development of modern age. His masterpiece – ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a direct commentary on the American life. That is to say, it is the criticism of American life. The novel deals with the condition of American particularly the life style of Americans.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribners, 1994. pg. 352.

Now everyone I want you to close your eyes and imagine what you think living in the 1920s would be like.

Throughout his novel Fitzgerald shows the reader that love is essential to a fully functioning relationship through portraying the failure of relationships based on materialism. All the major relationships presented in the novel were doomed to an extent based on differences in social class/status and obsession with wealth and success. The overriding theme of moral decay in America of the 1920’s determined the nature of society and its relationships, most of which were doomed to

It is evident that Fitzgerald admires the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’, for he uses beautiful imagery, “a fresh, green breast of the new world”, “trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house”, “a transitory enchanted moment man

In 1920s, America undergoes a period of cultural and social revolution. After the shocks by the chaos and violence of WWI, with a burst of economy which brought unprecedented levels of prosperity to the country, the generation turned into a lifestyle of wild and extravagant. Both published in 1925, the time when the jazz age at it’s peak, “The great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway depict the fragmentation of the soared society by narrating the experience of characters.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest American writers, admired by his contemparies and by modern audiences of today. Fitzgerald was very much in tune with the early twentieth century American culture. He is credited with capturing the ‘Jazz Age’, which he described as “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. Fitzgerald observed the culture around him with a critical eye. Despite being able to depict America like few others could, many see Fitzgerald’s writing as an indictment on its values.

The disillusionment of the American Dream is a frequent but important written theme in the American literature. Fitzgerald’s famous book The Great Gatsby is one of the most important representative works that reflects this theme. F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his novels and short stories which chronicle the excesses of America's Jazz Age during the 1920s. His classic twentieth-century story of Jay Gatsby examines and critiques Gatsby's particular vision of the 1920's American Dream. The Great Gatsby can be seen as a far-reaching book that has revealed many serious and hidden social problems at that time. As one of the most popular and financially successful

A comparison of the ways in which Fitzgerald and Bronte present their heroes. (2742 words)