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
The story is set during the peak of the economic boom after World War I and often referred to as the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald certainly takes note of this lifestyle in the Great Gatsby, as seen by the lavish parties and late city nights the characters experience. Jay Gatsby centers himself in this lifestyle and takes advantage of the so-called “American Dream” during the 1920s. Gatsby succeeds in changing his life as he goes from having nothing to seemingly having it all. By removing himself from his former life as a young
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows many examples of modernism. Fitzgerald shows many modernism techniques like loss of control, alienation, corruption of the American Dream, breaking society’s rules and feeling restless. Fitzgerald also shows modernism through the fragmented writing.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby focuses on the excitement and adventure of the roaring twenties, a time filled with great economic success and parties said to last the whole decade. New to Long Island and New York, aspiring bond man Nick Carraway becomes infatuated with the lifestyle of his rich peers living the “American dream”. He gains interest in his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby, who lives in an incredible mansion and has a vast amount of wealth. Gatsby uses his money to try and steal his love, Daisy Buchanan from her unfaithful husband, Tom. Characters in The Great Gatsby are unhappy and unfulfilled with their lives due to greed manipulating their view of The American Dream. This skewed perception also affects their unreasonable life expectations and their narcissistic thoughts create a larger potential for failure, such as Gatsby’s extravagant plan to steal Daisy Buchanan.
The Storyline of The Great Gatsby follows the format of the American Dream, and how it is nearly impossible for citizens to change their social class in the 1920s. There are many examples portrayed by Fitzgerald that demonstrate this side of the American Dream. The Anti-American Dream defense is much stronger than that of the Pro-American Dream defense, because of the realistic examples and the quotes directly from characters mouths who failed the American Dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby focuses on the excitement and adventure of the roaring twenties, a time filled with great economic success and parties said to last the whole decade. New to Long Island and New York, aspiring bond man Nick Carraway becomes infatuated with the lifestyle of his rich peers living the “American dream”. He gains interest in his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby who lives in an incredible mansion and has a vast amount of wealth. Gatsby uses his money to try and steal his love, Daisy Buchanan from her unfaithful husband, Tom. Characters in The Great Gatsby are unhappy and unfulfilled with their lives due to greed manipulating their view of The American Dream. This skewed perception also effects their unreasonable life expectations and their narcissistic thoughts create a larger potential for failure such as Gatsby’s extravagant plan to steal Daisy Buchanan.
The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920s, a time when women rebelled and the concentration of wealth increased. The novel symbolizes the attainability of the American dream and the fight to achieve it (Sarah Guthrie Bright, 2023). Throughout the novel, Gatsby is portrayed as a mysterious individual striving for his own American Dream. From the outside, he appears to have it all together, but F. Scott Fitzgerald created Gatsby’s character to show how mental delusions and actions can keep individuals from ever achieving their dreams. Gatsby's illusions of his parties, money, and his relationship with Daisy are all factors that affected him.
Without using depth of thought, The Great Gatsby is essentially a love story of the impossible forbidden desire between a woman and a man. The primary theme of the novel, however, shows off a much larger, less romantic scope of the novel. Though most of its primary plot takes place over simply a few short months through 1922’s summer, and is set in a small area in relative proximity to Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a a view on the 1920’s in America, and uses a lot of varied symbolism with it, in particular the loss and dismemberment of the American dream in an era literally named after the amount of wealth and industry it produced in material excess. Fitzgerald is able to showcase the 1920s as an era of dying social and moral values, evidenced in its overwhelming pessimism, desire, and unfulfilling pursuit of pleasure. The carelessness of the parties and celebrations that led to wild jazz music, exemplified in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night, eventually was created, in the corruption of the American dream, as the rampant desire for wealth and pleasure surpassed more worthwhile ideals.
The author Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby as a novel that talks about and covers American issues in the 1920s. He shows in the novel the carelessness and selfishness of everybody at the same time by portraying all of them in the location of west and east egg. Fitzgerald talks about a couple different topics throughout the novel. One of those is," the Attainment of a dream may be less satisfying than the pursuit of it" and the second one is"the American Dream is corrupted by the desire for wealth". He uses those themes to show how americans lived at a different time.
From the outside, one may think 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. At the same time
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides a dark and pessimistic outlook into the American life style in 1922. Jay Gatsby, an American wealthy social identity, appears to have it all. But wealth, stature and an extravagant lifestyle seems not to be enough for Gatsby; he still yearns for his old idealistic love Daisy. In an ideal world this has the making of a great love story with a happy ending, but Fitzgerald chose to carry the story as a reflection of the American era the book is set in. An era consumed by appearances and excess and overall pursuit of the American dream.
The Great Gatsby is a novel that illustrates the society in the 1920's and the associated beliefs, values and dreams of the American population at that time. These beliefs, values and dreams can be summed up be what is termed the "American Dream", a dream of money, wealth, prosperity and the happiness that supposedly came with the booming economy and get-rich-quick schemes that formed the essential underworld of American upper-class society. This underworld infiltrated the upper echelons and created such a moral decay within general society that paved the way for the ruining of dreams and dashing of hopes as they were placed confidently in the chance for opportunities that could be seized by one and all. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates the
On first glance, The Great Gatsby is about a romance between Gatsby and Daisy. The true theme behind this wonderful novel is not merely romance, but is also a very skeptical view of the extinction of the American dream in the prosperous 19s. This loss of the American dream is shown by Fitzgerald's display of this decade as a morally deficient one. He shows its incredible decadence in Gatsby's lavish and ostentatious parties. This materialistic attitude toward life came from the disillusionment of the younger generation of the old Victorian values. Also, with Prohibition in effect, illegal bootlegging practices made for yet another way for Americans to fall down the path of
The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story of misguided love between a man and a woman. Fitzgerald takes his reader through the turbulence and trials of Jay Gatsby’s life and of his pining for the girl he met five years prior. The main theme of the novel, however, is not solely about the love shared between Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The main purpose is to show the decline and decay of the American Dream in the 1920’s. The American Dream is the goal or idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all have the potential to live happy, successful lives. While on the surface, Gatsby
The Great Gatsby a, novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows a cast of characters abiding in the town of East and West Egg on affluent Long Island in the summer of 1922. Each of the characters, while part of the same story line, have different priorities and agendas, each character working towards achieving what they think would benefit them the most. As The Great Gatsby’s plot thickens the characters constantly show their discontent of the American Dream that they are living, always expressing their greed for more, three particular offenders of this deadly sin are Tom, Daisy and Gatsby himself. The characters motives stem from a mixture of boredom, a need and longing for the american dream, and simple selfish human
The Great Gatsby is set in post WWI America and at the time, the American dream was for any hardworking person to be able to achieve success and happiness regardless of their background or social class. This was a time of great change and revolution with the roaring twenties and rising middle class.