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Modernism In The Great Gatsby

Decent Essays

The Modernist period which took place roughly between the 1910s and the 1960s can be described as breaking away from traditional ways of writing and focusing more on the inner self and consciousness. The pre-Modernist period was a time in which many people defined their sense of self and purpose through religion and faith. However due to the rise in industrialization, new technology, and the events such as World War I and World War II, many questioned: “What was becoming of the world?” Many writers took this as an opportunity to answer this question in their literary works by using Modernist views, this is how the Modernist period came to be.
Two such writers who took this opportunity F. Scott Fitzgerald author of The Great Gatsby, and Ernest Hemingway author of The Sun Also Rises, in which their works show strong themes of modernism. One strong theme of modernism in both The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby is the decline and loss of The American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that everyone, men, and women, have an equal opportunity to achieve wealth, success and or happiness through determination, and hard work, in other words the pursuit of happiness.
From the outside one may think that The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story, however, its overall theme is more about The American Dream and how people are unable to obtain it. The Great Gatsby took place in the 1920s a time in which America’s economy was booming as well as prohibition, that created an underground

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