Examples Of Disillusionment In The Great Gatsby

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

revolutions that endeavored to reshape the conventional societal roles of women and African Americans. These societal conventions and prejudices, which Fitzgerald so clearly despises, are manifested through several of the characters in The Great Gatsby, including Tom Buchanan, a pompous, white aristocrat.
Tom Buchanan views his idle lifestyle as superior to that of anyone else.

“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

lifestyle.
At one of his dinner parties, Tom discusses the inevitable ruination of human advancement because of the infiltration of the black man in American society. Yet as he discusses the lazy tendencies of other races, he guzzles illegally obtained alcohol and his guest complains about how sore she is from sitting on the couch all day. Tom views himself as an enlightened, respectable individual because of his supposed academic opinions, though the best claim he has to support his theory is that “It’s all scientific stuff, it’s been proved.”
Tom has a similar attitude toward women, who are evidently used to such indignity because they respond with vapid remarks. During the same scene, he interrupts a woman who tries to respond to his monologue, and she does not attempt to regain her footing. When Tom speaks about the intrinsic superiority of whites, he pauses before including his wife, Daisy, among the whites who have “produced all the things that go to make civilization.” Daisy responds to these comments by praising how profound he is, because he reads “deep books…with long words in them.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is thick with irony, but the hypocrisy he depicts very well reflects widespread American attitudes and behaviors during the Roaring Twenties. Tom Buchanan is one of many white men who engaged in all-American shallow pursuits while criticizing the ignorance of everyone who he considered to be below him.