Examples Of Modernism In The Great Gatsby

Modernists see the ugly in the world, unlike realists who see beauty in the ugly. Fitzgerald uses the characters in The Great Gatsby to represent modernism as a rejection of traditional themes. Most of the characters in the novel follow traditions that get rejected because they seemed to be empty. In The Great Gatsby, that tradition is the American Dream. Gatsby himself is an example of one of those characters. Nick, however, is the one who sees the emptiness in those traditions. Fitzgerald uses inner monologue from Nick as a technique to show how the American Dream was rejected.

As the narrator of the novel, the inner monologue from Nick is frequent. Nick constantly judges all the characters and their flaws. On the first