Losing all Hope: Modernism and The Great Gatsby
Even though the United States is a relatively new country, its historical, artistic, and philosophical development is expansive. The modernism movement specifically, which spanned roughly from 1915-1940s, proved to be a time of a immense restlessness and, arguably, pessimism. The country experienced two world wars, prohibition and the repealing of it, the confirmation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the first image of a human face on television, and the atomic bomb. Instability, chaos, fluctuation, and the loss of faith in what was previously understood came to be the order of the day. Such sentiments are seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a modernist novel that follows the economic …show more content…
Nick Carraway, who professes himself unable to marry because he is “too poor,” represents the modest middle class (Fitzgerald 23). The story being told through the perspective of the middle class gives one the sense that it is a story told through eyes that are the most unclouded -- either with the pains of poverty or the apathy of richness. Nick’s neighbor Jay Gatsby, whose mansion towers overs Nick’s humble cottage, belongs to the class of those new to money. His decor shows the posturing of his class and its aim to assimilate into the aristocracy: Gatsby’s mansion “was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy” (Fitzgerald 7). Imitation is Gatsby’s modus operandi, and it extends beyond the ivy to even the expensive books in his library, which have never been …show more content…
George Wilson lost his wife well before she died because he was unable to improve his business and social-economic standing, a point that was repeated throughout the novel when Tom refused to sell him a blue car needed for George to make a profit. Gatsby, who desires the social respect and accolades afforded the aristocracy, is ostracized by the both Tom and Daisy in the end when it is discovered that he has earned his money illegally. In fact, not only does Daisy never contact him again, she blames her own immoral actions on him by telling Tom that it was Gatsby who killed Myrtle. Once again, the immorality of the aristocratic class is excused while it is not for those of lower classes. In fact, it is “Gatsby, most of all, [who] embodies the duality of American experience…” (Parkinson 136). He had an “extraordinary gift for hope,” but it was the “foul dust float[ing] in the wake of his dreams” that prevented him from attaining it (Fitzgerald 4). He embodied the hope sold in the idea of the American Dream, but he also experienced the lie of that dream,
Even though the United States is a relatively new country, its historical, artistic, and philosophical development is expansive. The modernism movement specifically, which spanned roughly from 1915-1940s, proved to be a time of a immense restlessness and, arguably, pessimism. The country experienced two world wars, prohibition and the repealing of it, the confirmation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the first image of a human face on television, and the atomic bomb. Instability, chaos, fluctuation, and the loss of faith in what was previously understood came to be the order of the day. Such sentiments are seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a modernist novel that follows the economic …show more content…
Nick Carraway, who professes himself unable to marry because he is “too poor,” represents the modest middle class (Fitzgerald 23). The story being told through the perspective of the middle class gives one the sense that it is a story told through eyes that are the most unclouded -- either with the pains of poverty or the apathy of richness. Nick’s neighbor Jay Gatsby, whose mansion towers overs Nick’s humble cottage, belongs to the class of those new to money. His decor shows the posturing of his class and its aim to assimilate into the aristocracy: Gatsby’s mansion “was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy” (Fitzgerald 7). Imitation is Gatsby’s modus operandi, and it extends beyond the ivy to even the expensive books in his library, which have never been …show more content…
George Wilson lost his wife well before she died because he was unable to improve his business and social-economic standing, a point that was repeated throughout the novel when Tom refused to sell him a blue car needed for George to make a profit. Gatsby, who desires the social respect and accolades afforded the aristocracy, is ostracized by the both Tom and Daisy in the end when it is discovered that he has earned his money illegally. In fact, not only does Daisy never contact him again, she blames her own immoral actions on him by telling Tom that it was Gatsby who killed Myrtle. Once again, the immorality of the aristocratic class is excused while it is not for those of lower classes. In fact, it is “Gatsby, most of all, [who] embodies the duality of American experience…” (Parkinson 136). He had an “extraordinary gift for hope,” but it was the “foul dust float[ing] in the wake of his dreams” that prevented him from attaining it (Fitzgerald 4). He embodied the hope sold in the idea of the American Dream, but he also experienced the lie of that dream,