Characteristics Of Modernism In The Great Gatsby

The early twentieth century is known for being an omnibus of exploration and evolution, especially in literature, which later was termed Modernism. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a writer who manifested the Modernism movement into his most famous piece of work, The Great Gatsby, which has been regarded as one of the most influential novels for decades due to its beautiful diction, as well as the numerous themes pertaining to American culture and everyday life in the 1920s. Modernism was a period from the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century that developed a new style of writing, with distinct characteristics. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, truly exemplifies a Modern novel, as it contains several characteristics …show more content…
Fitzgerald uses distortion of time in The Great Gatsby to show subterfuge and regret of Gatsby by giving the reader insight into his previous experiences. In the beginning of the novel, Nick Caraway, Gatsby’s neighbor and the novel’s narrator, explains his situation to the reader by vaguely describing how he was affected. “When [Nick] came back from the East last autumn [he] felt that [he] wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever…” (2). This indicates that the story is set in the then present day, but the past is being told to the reader. Towards the middle of the story, Fitzgerald halts the current story in order to flashback to Gatsby’s rough past. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself… So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). This recollection discloses that Gatsby has been deceiving everyone by exhibiting a florid display and telling people that he has been raised in a wealthy household, having the ability to go to Oxford; however this was far from the truth, because Gatsby was, in fact, a poor farmers’ child who later earned his wealth from …show more content…
Modern authors modified the typical tone, timeline, and themes in their works as compared to the Realism era. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a favorable example of a truly Modern novel, because Fitzgerald incorporated literary devices that were vogue of the 1920s: the theme of isolation to highlight the disconnection between people by fault of materialism, distortion of time in order to give context to previous situations, and an ironic tone to condemn the corruption of society. Fitzgerald blends these techniques through the characterization of Gatsby, so that he can create a truly modern man for a truly Modern