Modernism In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists of the twentieth century, with works under his name such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. His debut novel, This Side of Paradise, demonstrated the most significant recurring theme throughout his works—Modernism. Following the lead of other poets and artists in the aftermath of World War One, Fitzgerald experimented with a new type of literature that rejected the sentimentality of nineteenth-century works. In this way, Fitzgerald was able to reflect the loss of faith in traditional American values, as well as introduce a new kind of literary hero that is flawed, yet still honorable. Fitzgerald used seven of the most prominent characteristics of Modernism …show more content…
As the first of numerous scenes of death and violence in his various novels, Fitzgerald’s heavy imagery created a nearly surreal setting, that shook Amory to the core and left him carrying the heavy burden of death that he struggled with throughout the rest of the novel. In Sy Kahn’s article ‘This Side of Paradise: The Pageantry of Disillusion,’ he stated that this particular scene in the novel broke Amory’s “illusion that youth is permanent and indestructible.” The harsh notion of his own fragility that Amory was forced to accept caused the accident to have a large impact on him that he, a young college student, was not yet ready to expose himself to. A chaotic scene in itself, the gruesome accident connects to the state of disarray that America was left in after the war ended; as well as the confusing process of rebuilding a country after a period of such dark and upsetting circumstances. Once again deriving inspiration from the tragedy of the war, Fitzgerald uses the death of Amory’s classmates reflected the “death” of Fitzgerald’s generation and the ideals that they once …show more content…
Fitzgerald’s idea that “The problem of evil had solidified for Amory into the problem of sex,” (Kahn) reflected the changing attitudes toward sexuality in American society. Like Amory, many other young Americans suffered from the effects of living in such a pessimistic society. The pressure of recovering after a war of such magnitude caused many of them to adapt a new, looser, sense of morality that would allow them some sort of ease or freedom. This shift in acceptable social standards seemed to many to be a collapse of “true” American morals—as reflected by Amory later in the novel when he began to regret the immoral impulses he had once acted upon. Since the older sense of morality taught that unnecessary indulgences were immoral and taboo, there was a sense of wrongness in the actions of the younger Americans as they began to express their sexuaility more openly; as if they were breaking some sort of unspoken