Loss Of Morality In The Great Gatsby

In F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is swept up into a tumultuous summer in New York during 1922, during which he learns more than he possibly wanted about the shallowness of the wealthy along with their blatant lack of morals. Tragedies such as the Civil War and WWI caused people to feel that the claimed happiness brought about by working hard to become rich was nothing more than a fabrication. As a result, countless Americans became disillusioned and threw out any sense of morality left in them. In addition, the loss of morality caused people to feel that religion was no longer applicable and instead they turned to reason and logic when answering life’s questions. Fitzgerald criticises a loss of morality in modern American

In Chapter 7, Nick brings up Eckleburg’s eyes after describing how the news of Myrtle’s infidelity had caused George Wilson to become ill. “Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg kept their vigil” (Fitzgerald 124). Fitzgerald’s mention of Eckleburg’s vigilant gaze illustrates that God was scrutinizing the actions performed by the characters of the story, providing his own judgement on their wickedness. During the 1920s, a decline in human morality was a common part of the American life due to both preexisting and newly introduced concepts, such as evolution, which refuted the necessity of religion in a modern society. By showing a symbol of God to be constantly judging the characters’ absences of morals which caused many issues such as careless murder and cheating, Fitzgerald criticizes modern American society and portrayed a lack of morals in a highly negative light. Outside of the text during the 1920s, the literary period of Modernism had been prevalent due to many people experiencing postwar disillusionment and abandoning their faith in the American Dream. In 1925, the American legal case commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial took place, drawing massive national publicity and serving to function as an example of the dispute between evolutionists and creationists. After the teacher, John Scopes, was