Essay Sample on The Great Gatsby: A Modernist Tale of the Jazz Era's Downfall

Introduction

The Great Gatsby is among the many successful modern novels projecting the downfall of the jazz era in the United States. A modernist novel is one that rejects the old traditional writings founded on the importance of respect, submission to authority and the given religious standards that are designed to result in a good moral lesson. The Great Gatsby, like any other modernist novel, aims to reveal the social injustices instead of showing the reader the false rose-tinted view of modern society. The novel illuminates an understanding of thematic concerns that portrays the 1920s concerns of Americans. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby novel follows the characteristics of modernist philosophy by portraying an entirely new view of life, the loss of conscience in human existence as there are no moral rules, a description of the life that feels empty and the corrupted American dream.

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The Great Gatsby as a Modernist Novel

The Great Gatsby aims to expose the social injustices through the inventive features of a modernist novel. Such modernist features that Fitzgerald uses in his novel include the aspect of the unreliable narrator, imagery, a structure of non-linear narrative to explain past and present, a reflective viewpoint and an amalgamation of genres. The life of Nick Caraway is a reflection of the writer's life because he gives intense moral opinions through the novel. Carroway likes to think that due to his upbringing in West America, he is persuaded to reserve any judgment; however, he becomes an unreliable narrator because of his persistent hypocrisy throughout the novel. Nick retains the conscience of his Midwestern heritage but is altered by his introduction to Gatsby's world. The novel's characters lose control and end up making the wrong decisions that have disastrous consequences.

Symbolism of Money and Wealth

All characters in The Great Gatsby are a symbol of the modern way of life such as social class, money, industry, and crime. The theme of money and wealth are some major prevailing themes in the novel. A serious devotion to wealth and class is presented by the Buchanan family. Like modern society, economic boost and increase in wealth greatly affect the moral and social values of the society. Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Meyer Wolfsheim are some of the people whose moral values have been corrupted by money. Daisy, who was born and even married in wealth lacks values and finds her life purposeless. She has no consideration for other humans and ends up ruthlessly killing Myrtle Wilson. Gatsby also made his profits through unacceptable but profitable businesses. In her analysis, Will states that "For it is fitting that the sum of Gatsby's "corruption," his obscurity and indeterminacy, might be expressed by a word that literally cannot be read" (219). According to Will, the filth of corruption seen through Gatsby is indescribable because it is too much (219). Through the difficulty of making a living, the novel proves that the people no longer believed in the easy and moral traditional ways of life.

Loss of Spiritualism and Religious Shallowness

The Great Gatsby also portrays modernism by revealing people's loss of sense as a result of religious shallowness. Loss of spiritualism and wealth acquisition are interrelated because it is a matter of cause-effect. The rich such as Tom and Daisy do not give any importance at all to religious uprightness. Because of financial power, Tom kills Mary Myrtle and runs free without punishment. Additionally, through imagery, Fitzgerald exemplifies America's falling moral state during this 20th-century era by use of symbols such as Eyes of Eckleburg and the valley of ashes. The association of the eyes with material gain demonstrates the decline of religious spirituality and a sign of the corrupted human mind. With modernity came technology and with technology came the abandonment of spiritual values and religion. Hasan in his analysis of the contribution of literature to modernism writes "...the negative aspect of technology is that it makes human beings all day busy and think of how to earn money to maintain life, therefore they would become materialistic and dead spiritually" (17). Fitzgerald uses the character of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan to reveal how technology and other modern advancements affect the human sense of consciousness. The novel The Great Gatsby is a modernist novel because, through the characters, it reveals the unfairness of the world and lack of a plan of upright living.

The Falling American Dream

The central theme of The Great Gatsby is the falling American dream. Fitzgerald reveals the irony of the American dream which represents independence, freedom, equality and hard work. As a modernist novel it portrays the opposite of dream stating that that the central thing in human life is to chase money to gain freedom and equality. Every character in the novel is struggling to gain and maintain financial success. Jay Gatsby, the main character of the story, has many limitless plans of what he is capable of doing to gain Daisy Buchanan's love. Gatsby uses the green light to represent Daisy and strives to reach on to it as a lead to his goal.

...he was content to be alone he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily, I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (Fitzgerald 12)

Gatsby's dream represents the American dream. The green light represents America, it's rising from the ocean and looking to the initial occupants of the new nation. The American dream in this Jazz age had now become more concerned with material possession which was used to portrays an individual's wealth and social status to show how successful they are in life. As opposed to America's dream of a strong democratic political system, there exist bribery and corruption caused by materialistic mindsets.

Emptiness of Life in Modernism

The emptiness of life is the central point of modernism. At the end of the novel, many questions arise including why does no one attend Gatsby's funeral? And why is it that Daisy decides to go back to Tom? Gatsby struggled to achieve success and gain Daisy but ends up dying alone. Additionally, throughout the novel, rich characters are unhappy. Tom and Daisy's broken marriage is covered behind wealth, vacations and fancy things. They believe an upper life is achieved if one acts the way that society demands. Nick does not want to be one of the empty corrupted communities of the rich who only care for their own happiness. Empty modernist life in the novel is portrayed through materialism.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Fitzgerald's novel is founded on the characteristics of modernist philosophy that portraying an entirely new view of life, the loss of purpose in human existence as there are no moral rules, a description of the life that feels empty and the corrupted American dream. In the novel, new trends give rise to new aspects of life and shattering the Victorian era. The use of literary styles such as unreliable narrator and non-linear narrative makes the novel a modernist type. Additionally, through the stories, Fitzgerald in his novel reveals modernism-associated ills such as social injustices, failed American dream, loss consciousness in life.

Work Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The great gatsby. Broadview Press, 2007.

Hasan, Mariwan N. "The Rise Of Modernism :, A New History Of Western Modernism." Kirkuk University Journal for Humanities, vol. 11, no. 1, Sept. 2016, p. 1, doi:10.32894/1911-011-001-012.

Will, Barbara. "" The Great Gatsby" and the Obscene Word." College Literature (2005): 206-229, www.jstor.org/stable/25115310.