Theme Of Modernism In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel from the 1920s that shows the corruption of the “American Dream.” The novel shows modernism in its unreliable narrator, iconic symbols, and theme of wealth in the time of prosperity. Modernism is the rejection of social, political, or religious views, often with the basis of science explains everything. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin who had close experiences with Gatsby. Everything in the story is what Nick Carraway saw, his opinions of what happened, and the thoughts he had during those times. Looking at the way Nick narrated the story, it can be assumed that Nick Carraway is biased to Gatsby throughout the story.This causes many parts of the story to be very one sided in Gatsby’s favor.
The symbols in the novel such as the green light, the glasses, and the valley of ashes all have meanings that show modernism in the novel. The Valley of Ashes was a dumping ground filled with pollution. The people here were not as well off as their Long Island counterparts.The valley of ashes as described in the novel is,”About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs besides it for a quarter of a mile so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”(Fitzgerald 27). This was a huge symbol of the darkness beneath the facade. In between all of the gaudiness, parties, and money was the decay, hidden by the city and the Eggs. When the light is glowing, Gatsby is reaching toward it with longing. This represents not only Gatsby's dream for the future, but also everyone's. Everyone was striving for the wealth and wonderment of the 20's in much the same way that Gatsby was striving to win back Daisy no matter what. In the Valley of Ashes, a billboard depicts a faded pair of eyes eerily watching over everyone, “The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild
For instance wealth could be heard in someone’s voice, “Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it,”(Fitzgerald 99). This would mean that Gatsby stood out because he wasn’t born with money thus he didn’t “fit in” with others such as Tom or Daisy who had been wealthy since birth. The problems of wealth are shown later in the novel, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made,”(Fitzgerald 136). This behavior shows the corruption of wealth and how modernism depicts the “bad” side of wealth during this time period. However the corruption of wealth was brought up in the beginning of the novel, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had”(Fitzgerald 1). This bluntly states that wealth brings corruption and exemplifies the modernist idea against what is socially