Examples Of Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby

592 Words2 Pages

Tabi Fink Response Paper 1
Disillusionment in the Roaring Twenties In his 1925 contemporary novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald parodies the arrogance, superficiality, and ignorance with which he regards the upper class of the Roaring Twenties. Intended for the general American public, The Great Gatsby portrays the luxurious, idle lives of several fictional wealthy Americans. Fitzgerald’s exaggerated characters highlight the white aristocracy’s distorted beliefs about the American nation. He distinctly underlines the contradiction between the values that the white aristocrat claims to hold dear and the values with which he actually conducts himself. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a member of the Lost Generation, a cohort of disillusioned artists who grew up amidst the turmoil of World War I. Jaded and angry, The Lost Generation viewed American life after the war as shallow and petty. This time span, referred to as the Roaring Twenties because of its flamboyant free-spiritedness, was largely focused on consumerism, entertainment, and social status. Excessive alcohol consumption became widespread among otherwise moral Americans in defiant response to the 18th Amendment, which prohibited alcohol. Bigotry against immigrants and females intensified as white males began to feel threatened by the social …show more content…

“I’d be a God Damn fool to live anywhere else” than the East, he proclaims. Yet the words that he uses to describe the supposed pinnacle of human development depict a way of life that is a far cry from progressive. The narrator, a discreet observer, cannot help but wonder what exactly these people accomplish with their time. He describes the lavish parties that they attend until all hours of the night. He recounts the endless dinner parties that Tom hosts. They play sports, and they drink alcohol, and they relax, and do not do much else. This, Tom asserts, is the true American

Show More
Related

  • Examples Of Desperation In The Great Gatsby

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel The Great Gatsby, common themes integrated into the story include love, wealth, the past and desperation. Of these themes, desperation is the most prominent. Fitzgerald writes desperation into his characters so deeply that the reader can feel what the characters feel. Examples of desperation within characters include the unreachable love, wealth, new life, and overall happiness.

    Read More

  • "Prosperity" of the 20's

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a scathing criticism of the rich men and women of 1920’s America. The only driving force behind them is the lust for excess money and pleasure.

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby in order to display the wretchedness of upper-class society in the United States. The time period, the 1920s, was an age of new opulence and wealth for many Americans. As there is an abundance of wealth today, there are many parallels between the behavior of the wealthy in the novel and the behavior of today’s rich. Fitzgerald displays the moral emptiness and lack of personal ethics and responsibility that is evident today throughout the book. He also examines the interactions between social classes and the supposed noblesse oblige of the upper class. The idea of the American dream and the prevalence of materialism are also scrutinized. All of these social issues spoken about in The Great Gatsby are relevant in modern society. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this novel as an indictment of a corrupt American culture that is still present today.

    Read More

  • Great Gatsby American Dream Essay

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald was a romantic character in both his fiction life and his real life and “…was perhaps the last notable writer to affirm the Romantic fantasy, descended from the Renaissance, of personal ambition and heroism, of life committed to, or thrown away for, some ideal of self"(Voegeli). The inspiration for The Great Gatsby came from the experience Fitzgerald had with a Jewish bootlegger and his symbolism for the book is “never more ingenious than in his depiction of the bankruptcy of the old agrarian myth” (Trask). The realization that America had been changed and transformed into a new world arose. America has become a new world with a new set of traditional beliefs. The beliefs were onset by the growing fields of industrialization and urbanization. America is now a place in which “a revolution in manners and morals was inevitable” (Trask). The trend of this new life style and tradition was reinforced by World War 1 and the writers critiqued the traditional faiths. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a story about love and intrigue. He shows the possibility of movement between the different social classes during the Roaring Twenties in the United States. The American dream was the thought that people who had talent in the 'land of opportunity' could gain success if they followed a set of well-defined behavioral rules. During this time period, Americans believed that satisfaction would automatically follow success. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald raises many important political questions: "What does it mean to live well, and on what terms people can live together?” and it shows America's thoughts and answers to these essential questions (Voegeli). These questions are referring to the different social classes and be...

    Read More

  • Themes Of The American Dream In The Great Gatsby

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald penned The Great Gatsby in the midst of the Roarin’ Twenties. It was a period of cultural explosion, rags-to-riches histories, and a significant shift in the ideals of the American Dream. Fitzgerald’s characters all aspired to fill an American Dream of sorts, though their dreams weren’t the conventional ones. In the novel, the American Dream did a sort of one-eighty. Instead of looking west, people went east to New York in hopes of achieving wealth. The original principals of the Dream faded away, in their place, amorality and corruption. The fulfillment of one’s own American Dream is often marked by corruption, dishonesty, and hope.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through these two representations of the upper class in the “roaring twenties” Fitzgerald criticizes the values society has built upon, which is mainly materialism. Fitzgerald purposely creates two distinct classes to present his ideals, and most importantly, to capture the essence of the society we live in. In addition, by exploring this class, the readers can easily understand how the value systems have gone out of balance, and how in general, people’s lives are out of control. The message the readers seem to receive is that even if an individual attempts to advance through the social class ladder, he would “borne back ceaselessly into the past” 8, overstepping the boundaries.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Ignorance In The Great Gatsby

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel “The Great Gatsby” The argument stands Is “ignorance truly bliss or is knowledge power“

    Read More

  • Examples Of Saddening In The Great Gatsby

    210 Words  | 1 Pages

    Nick’s quote, “It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment” (pg 104, The Great Gatsby) demonstrates that it’s saddening to look at things that someone used to see in a positive light only to find out that they were wrong about their initial judgment. This is especially represented in the words “new eyes” because Nick is describing how it feels when a person sees things in a new light from a different perspective. When he says, “upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment,” he’s basically saying that it especially ‘saddening’ when something that people have previously formulated their opinion about turns out to be completely different as opposed to what

    Read More

  • The Rich and The Poor in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    587 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored. Such is exemplified by Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson and Tom Buchanan. Their ambitions distinctly represent their class in which Fitzgerald implies strongly about.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Rebellion In The Great Gatsby

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    Restraining the American people, the rigid structure of society evokes a strong desire to rebel against societal pressure, seen in many pieces of American literature. In many of their novels, American authors portray this feeling as being the most strong in youth, or those in transition to adulthood. Helplessly, these individuals feel as if they are not quite adults, but also not children. For this reason they are confused by societal expectations, and in return rebel. According to Salinger, many young American individuals feel confined by the expectations of society. In like manner, they go against the wishes of others in order to find themselves. In many cases a sense of being held back by society catalyzes rebellion. Naturally, individuals

    Read More

  • The Jazz Age Explored in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the past century in America, one of the decades that has stood out most as a time of change is the 1920s. In a post-war economic boom, the decade was a time of cultural and societal change. Among the parties and the more relaxed way of life, Americans experienced new wealth and luxury. Capturing the essence of the Roaring Twenties is a daunting task, especially because of the many different factors contributing to the decade’s fame. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald managed to capture and define the spirit of the 1920s through his novel.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    Disillusionment and hope go hand in hand with one another in the aspect that hope often leads to disillusionment. If one aspirations, one can often be blinded and disappointed by the effects when one’s desires do not turn out the way one desires, leading to disillusionment. According to Sven Birkets, a critic, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is one about “disillusionment and hope”.In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby the character of Tom Buchanan experiences his own taste of disillusionment while Jay Gatsby encounters hope in his own life.

    Read More

  • Significance Of The Mafia In The Great Gatsby

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is an American novel of hope and longing, and is one of the very few novels in which “American history finds its figurative form (Churchwell 292).” Gatsby’s “greatness” involves his idealism and optimism for the world, making him a dreamer of sorts. Yet, although the foreground of Fitzgerald’s novel is packed with the sophisticated lives of the rich and the vibrant colors of the Jazz Age, the background consists of the Meyer Wolfsheims, the Rosy Rosenthals, the Al Capones, and others in the vicious hunt for money and the easy life. Both worlds share the universal desire for the right “business gonnegtion,” and where the two worlds meet at the borders, these “gonnegtions” are continually negotiated and followed (James E. Miller). Gatsby was a character meant to fall at the hands of the man meant to be a reality check to the disillusions of the era.

    Read More

  • Effects Of War In The Great Gatsby

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a sparkling time capsule of the attitudes and lifestyles of Nineteen Twenties America. Though the nineteen twenties are a decade well known for it’s lavish lifestyles and exuberant drinking parties, this was all just a coping mechanism to deal with the newfound horrors of war. An overwhelming disillusionment and unremorseful high class debauchery reigned supreme on the east coast, however, it was not only the rich who were affected by the brutal, bleak truth of war.

    Read More

  • Moral Corruption In The Great Gatsby

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism underlying and moral corruption society. The idea of the American dream is the ideal that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life,

    Read More

More about Examples Of Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby

Open Document