Set against the backdrop of post-war America, F. Scott Fitzgerald epitomizes the withering of social and moral values in society. Fitzgerald conveys his mixed feelings towards a transient society. With stories written and told, absent and present authors and listeners, a variety of voices pervades the narration, evoking a conflict between illusion and reality. Moreover, Fitzgerald employs a faded catalog of guests to symbolize the vulgarity of society and the inevitable disintegration of time, exposing the superficial society hidden under the shimmering surface of wealth. Fitzgerald begins the passage with the setting of a ‘Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore’, underscoring the existence of a moral code in society. The personification of ‘the …show more content…
The altering use of commas and enjambment perpetuates the passage, punctuating a monotonal voice which endeavors to mirror a frivolous society. Carroway’s comment about Benny McCleanahan’s four girls, ‘I have forgotten their names...their last names were either the melodious names of followers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be’ is reflective of the dishonesty and obscenity in society. Furthermore, Fitzgerald employs animal names, ‘Leeches’, ‘Ferrets’ and fish names, ‘Hammerheads’, “Snells”, as the last names of the guests, portraying them as caricatures rather than realistic characters. Indeed, the myriad of guests reveals society’s over indulgence for wealth. Guests like Ed Legros and James B Ferret have come to gable yet they are ‘cleaned out’. This obsession with wealth of society as a whole is what drives the decay of moral values. Originally society was in pursuit of discovery, individualism and happiness, yet its obsession with the easy acquisition of wealth has propelled this pursuit into