"The Great Gatsby" and Modernism

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the novel "The Great Gatsby" is an instance of the modernist obliteration of reality by science, art and history. It looks at how the rich symbolism and the scientific concerns of Fitzgerald all hint of the modernist eclectic and elitist style of writing. Moreover, the narrative is told from the single and very subjective point of view of Nick Carraway, and, as such, it takes an impressionist form, almost devoid of objectivity. It concludes that Fitzgerald's novel is modernist from various points of view, in style, language, ideas and construction.

From the Paper:

"All in all, it is clear that Fitzgerald stands aloof of actual reality, for which he has no consideration. His intention is not to talk about the real, but about a reality, a superior truth and not a factual, immediate one. The rich symbolism of the text does that very well. As a typical modernist writer, he is primarily preoccupied with the artistic truth about the world, and not with the real one. John Henry Raleigh observed that the author dramatizes the opposition between materialism and idealism which is specific of the American culture: "America had produced an idealism so impalpable that it had lost touch with reality (Gatsby) and a materialism so heavy that it was inhuman (Tom Buchanan)."(Mizener, 101) Thus, the novel seems to be about the "game of belief and illusion"(Bloom, 138), in which Gatsby with his own invented reality persist in his perfect dream in spite of everything. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barrett, Laura. "Material without Being Real: Photography and the End of Reality in 'The Great Gatsby.'" Studies in the Novel. Vol. 30(4) 1998, p. 540-555.
• Breitwieser, Mitchell. "Jazz Fractures: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Epochal Representation." American Literary History. 3 (2000): 359-81
• Bloom, Harold, ed. Gatsby. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.
• Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby.
• "Fitzgerald, F. Scott." Roaring Twenties Reference Library. Ed. Kelly Howes. Vol. 1: Almanac and Primary Sources. Detroit: 2006. p221-230. 2 vols. http://find.galegroup.com

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