Modernism and Realism influences on The Great Gatsby
Written and Organized by Maria Paula Andrade
The most famous Fitzgerald novel,The Great Gatsby, is pretty influenced by modernism and realism artistic movements. Fitzgerald uses a lot figurative and symbolic, as one of the main characteristics of modernism, but also the author focus in Psychological complex personality of their characters in order to highlight their emotional feelings and psychological dilemmas over external situations. Furthermore, Fitzgerald's novel is a great critique to social structure, a realism caracheteristic.By the other hand, even though there are influences of these two art and literature schools, The Great Gatsby novel is considered more realistic than modernistic since even linguistics devices, as alliteration and metaphors, and the main ideas of modernism are used as supportive elements for criticizing the American Dream and american concepts of social mobility.
Realism as an art and literature movement
MARK TWAIN
Realism is an artistic movement originated in the mid-nineteenth century. It had came up as an opposite view of individual, created by the previous art school, Romanticism. Realistic mater-pieces highlight the psychological complex of individual and how it related with its meliu emphasizing the human individual behavior in its nature. Instead of focus on real human traits, Romanticism proposes an ideal model of individual.Three of the famous realistic authors were: Henry James, George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) and Mark Twain. Their novels highlights details on places where story happens and meticulous and thorough characters psychological descriptions.
Realism in The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald adds realistic devices by describing psychological personality of characters and their social background showing how complex they are. Daisy attitudes points toward a depressive, fragile, irresponsible, pushover, unstable and fussy women. Even Though, Gatsby was her love in the past and she's definitely unhappy in a marriage with Tom Buchanan she seems to protect him all the time, and also admitted she loves him. Dayse's personal and psychological conflict can be partly explained by her social economic and cultural background. She was born in a rich family and fellow in love with Gatsby when He was still a poor man. That's why they couldn't get married. When Gatsby went over to fight in World War I, Daisy have sent letters begging him to come back soon because she had been suffering pressure from world outside. At Daisy’s fiance party, Daisy got hangover to be forced marry Tom Buchanan loving Gatsby. In first dinner at Buchanan's house, Daisy reports Nick she turned her head away and wept after nurse has told she had given the light for a girl and confesses she hopes her daughter became the “best thing a girl can be in this world”: a beautiful little fool. It’s important mentioning Daisy has reported her baby birth after Tom receiving a suspect call from New York and also when she’s unburdened herself she’s had a bad time that had been making her cynical, hopeless and angry with everything anyhow. Then, Nick's narration suggests irony and no sincerity in Daisy's talking. Actually, Daisy seems to be sorry and disappointed her daughter would be silly and fool like she is.At the same time, she had been confessing indirectly she knows about Tom extramatrimonial relationship.
“The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air.(...) Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into a velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl (...) “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything”. Evidently she had reason to be.(...) “You see I think everything is terrible anyhow”, she went on in a convinced way."(pages 19-20)
This quote makes reader reflects about how difficult and dedicated used to be for Women in 20's express her own feelings and choices, specially when she must obey her family to marry someone with the same social status, doesn't matter its behavior, its values or even how much unhappy and frustrated she would be. Although, Flappers - women that have gone against social and conventional norms in 20’s by drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, dancing and facing sex as a causal act - have came up in so called “Roaring Twenties” most of women in America Society follow the freedomless social rules.
By the other hand, Gatsby is described as an elegant, affectionate, ambitious and nostalgic man. He had belong to low-income class at the time he and Daisy fellow in love, but Daisy had gotten married Tom, a rich man when Gatsby have returned from war. Jay became rich and even though Daisy has left him, he uses all his fortune in order to win her back. Gatsby behavior points toward a shameful, romantic, nostalgic and grievous psychological personality. Once he was poor and was not able to get married Daisy due its social status, Gatsby reacts against his background by showing everybody he has a lot of money, so he gives big and exaggerated parties, shows lavish displays and flaunts performances.Besides that, Jay has created a persona by changing its name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby and telling Nick Carraway he'd graduated at Oxford University when actually he was only a soldier in World War I. Also, all of Gatsby's attitudes are driven by grief since he is so obsessive to get back to a certain period of time and ruminantes his love for Daisy all the time in a way he can't move his life forward. Once again, Fitzgerald considers the relationship between character's background and its personal choices/psychological conflict typical of realistic art style.
The Great Gatsby story also can be seen as a critique to "American Dream" and american concepts of social status and mobility. Fitzgerald shows The American Dream, the belief of people from lower socioeconomic class can move up to an upper one by working hard, trough Gatsby and the impossibility of make his biggest dream come true: win Daisy back as in the past. This fact reflects Fitzgerald's point of view on American Dream as a false promise, because though Gatsby have got rich, he and Daisy still have different social and economic backgrounds. In the movie, different palette colors are associated to Daisy and Gatsby personalities. While Daisy is linked to pale, dust and clashing colors, Gatsby is associated with colorful, hot and vibrates tones.
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The style of The Great Gatsby is sophisticated, wry and also elegiac creating a sense of loss and nostalgia. That's why the most frequently words are "time" and "past". Moreover, Fitzgerald writing style on The Great Gatsby allows reader noticing the crude nature of characters and letting it know which kind of social background and level education they have by adding to Nick's narration a sardonic and sharp wit, subtly satiric observations and an undertone of ridicule in lot of his descriptions.
“Instead of rambling this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside - East Egg condescending West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety” (page 49)
This passage is about how Nick describes people and their behavior at Gatsby party, the old-fashioned and ornate words "homogeneity", "nobility", "condescending" and "spectroscopic gaiety" shows Nick have high level of education. Furthermore, Nick exposures a kind of gap or even a rank between classes by describing the relationship between Est Egg and West Egg as "condescending" and also saying people from East Egg are "on guard" against west egg gleaming happiness in a way of giving a sense of elitism. In order to highlight the gap of education level between Elite and lower- class, Fitzgerald writes in a simple language and a kind of wrong grammar structure a question from last Gatsby's Party guests.
“‘Wha’s matter?’ he inquired calmly. ‘Did we run outa gas?’(...)‘At first I din’ notice we’d stopped’. A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice: ‘Wonder’ff tell me where there’s a gas’line station?’” (page 60)
Modernism as an art and literature movement
Modernism is a artistic movement that has begun in the late nineteenth century as a response of rise of technology, urbanization and velocity. Modernists highlights consequences of modernity, automation and technological progress on human behavior and their own experiences. Modernists writers emphasizes how experiences shape or even determine individual personality through effects in an unconscious level. That's a point in common with realists: focus on individual. Modernist style of writing is build by linguistic devices, like alliteration, repetition, metaphors since writers blend on stylistic experimentation and new literary ways to telling something without using traditional modes of communication and then asking and rethinking/redesigning reality. After World War I, lots of writers moved to Paris and used to get together at Gertrude Stein's home to discuss about concerns on automation in the beginning of century.That's one of reasons Scott Fitzgerald is remembered as "The American Modernist".These poets belong to "Lost Generation" and their masterpieces are based on how individual faces automation, how people deal with anonymity and which kinds of effects modernity had been producing. Three of most famous modernists writers are: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Their modernists books talk about the impossibility of figuring the world out clearly and also the flowing of individual thought using a stream-of-consciousness narrative form.
Modernism in The Great Gatsby
Even Though The Great Gatsby is considered more realistic than modernist, the book has several modernist elements. In the end of book, Nick Carraway mentioned El Greco, a painter from 16th century. Although, modernism has came up only 300 years later, El Greco is so-called "The first modernist" because he depict religion entities through exotic shape and perspective using cold and clashing colors. "Holy family with Mary Magdalen", painted in 1610-1614, is one of his several paints that shows how unconventional and far from reality is his painting style.
"Holy family with Mary Magdalen" (El Greco, 1610-1614). Gallery: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio/USA.
"The Holy Family on the Steps" (Nicholas Poussin, 1648). Gallery: National Gallery of Art, Whashigton, DC/USA.
In order to illustrate the difference between a modernist aliking paint and a realistic one, it's possible compare to "Madonna of the Steps", painted by a French artist called Nicholas Poussin in 1648. Both of them depict religious environment, but the former picture shows a particular perspective full of distortions from reality, instead of the latter one which seems like a photography with a perfect and metric perspective and distribution of lights and shadows.
Also in the book, Fitzgerald use a lot figurative language and words and some of them are poetic distortions of reality like "blue smoke", "a grotesque rose", "shining dust" and "golden girl".Furthermore, The Great Gatsby both movie and book emphasises the anxiety and velocity brought with modernity and urbanization. In the movie, Gatsby and Nick scenes on the jay's yellow car are a sequence of accelerated dialogues and fast camara takes, also the "Wild road scene" shows a transition from field to urban area with a intense traffic and lights. Frames from this scene shows unclearly buildings around them to give a sense of speed.
TECHNOLOGY
By the other hand, in the book Fitzgerald blend on a word game to give a sense of movement, typical of modernist experimental writing style.
Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”(page 39-40)
In this quote, the words "within", "without", "simultaneously enchanted and repelled" and "inexhaustible variety of life" brings a sense of movement and energy to Nick's descriptions of city. Besides that, also in the movie costumes were modernized 20's fashion clothing and soundtrack are composed by current songs to give a sense of modernity. Modernist writing uses a lot of symbolic and figurative language, the biggest metaphor of The Great Gatsby is the green light.
The Green Light
The green light means that Gatsby and Daisy love can be recaptured since Gatsby is as rich as Daisy, so social and economic backgrounds gap could no longer be a barrier. Green color has currently been linked to money, so for Gatsby the green light means wealth and then a passport to win Daisy back from Tom. Although Gatsby have become a rich and kind of famous man by selling alcoholic drinks illegally, the book underlines Gatsby doesn't belong to the upper class of those ones born into wealth, like Daisy and Tom. As Gatsby is associated to green color and then american paper currency, Daisy is linked to gold and silver when she is described as a "golden girl" and "gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor". It's suggests that while the paper currency changes its value according to circumstances, the second one is stable and used as parameter/measure of value to other types of currency. In the movie, different color palette are associated to Daisy and Gatsby.
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Eventually, the green light is a metaphor for American Dream and its belief that people from a lower class background can move up to upper class by working hard, but they still is not can be seen as elit due to cultural structure of American Society. At 20's, American has experienced more class mobility than other country, but everything changes in 1929, USA had a financial crash leading lots of people back to lower class and showing the american dream was made of sands. The message of the green light is reinforced by the death of three characters from lower level background while Daisy, Nick, Tom and Jordan survive and two of them haven't suffered the effects of their own actions.
The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg
Another important metaphor in The Great Gatsby is the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. Even though there's and unrevealed connection between the eyes of Doc and God judges American Society, the eyes represent how people based their behavior, thoughts and point of views on how they want to be seen. This explains part of Gatsby personality as he loves giving big parties and lavish performance to be seen or even been accepted as a Rich man. In the book, Fitzgerald uses linguistic devices such as alliteration and repetition typical of modernist style.
“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath - already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under constantly changing light.” (page 44-45).
This passage shows Nick point of view of Gatsby's party, so words and expressions like "swiftly", "swell", dissolve and form", "wanderers", "weave", "glide on", "sea-change" and "constantly changing light" gives an idea of continual and harmonic movement.Furthermore, words like "swiftly", "swell", "sea-change" give a sense of flow and works as a metaphor of ocean. This sophisticated quote full of metaphors and imagistic expressions can be used as an irony since they emphasis a contrast between Nick's description and real performance of characters which actually behave frenetically, chaotic and unpolitelly.
Also, once again Fitzgerald highlights educational level gap between characters trough Nick's narration of casual situations, once he describes city in a highly stylized way and more poetic than literal compared to a simple and ordinary language of characters like George Wilson.
“Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world” (page 74)
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“‘I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,’ remarked Wilson.’That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I’ve been bothering you about the car’”(page 132)
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If you are interested in go deeper on The Great Gatsby analysis of Modernism and Realism Influences, check these videos out:
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