Literary Criticism In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Furthermore, the dire quality of contemporary novels has also factored into the decline of literature in today’s society and Martin Greenberg proposes this when he addresses literary criticism. In regards to this, Greenberg suggests that the novels of today simply “echo the sounds” and “the surface of American life quite skillfully”. In doing this, we expose our readers to a phony surface of American life and readers simply end up “disappointed by the shallowness of thought, of novelistic thought.” These ideas derived from Fitzgerald, who manipulated the ideals of the 1920’s to portray in his novels and reveal novelists during this time who also failed to produce quality work. Greenberg then ties Fitzgerald’s themes of modern American culture

This theory consists of the fact that firstly, we no longer hold a tangible idea of what reality is because we’ve gotten lost predicting futuristic realities and interpreting the realities of the past. Examples of this can be found in today’s novels that repeat themes to appeal to consumers and quickly become movies because their popularity have promised the market money. Such novels consist of the sci-fi, post-apocalyptic Hunger Games series, the post-apocalyptic Divergent series, and even the romanticizing of the 1920’s in the newest version of The Great Gatsby. Furthermore, Wilterdink argues that self-identity was played with through themes in the nineteenth century, and that because of this introduction, the relation between Westerners and identity has accelerated, if not been improved. However, this indication is respective and in context of the identity of that particular century. Identity, like modernism, and literature evolves into many different forms as different societies change. Therefore, to claim that the identity in the nineteenth century has sped along our understanding of our identity today is an overstatement because society has drastically