MORALES
DECLINANT
(THE
MORAL DECLINE)
By Mark Fratto
Christ
once said, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and
love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve both God and Money." (Matthew 6:24) When an economy becomes
prosperous in a society, the people will experience a time of lavish living. But
in this time of material prosperity, more men and women devote themselves to
currency instead of Christ, causing a time of great immorality and degradation.
This problem is evident even today in the United States, which, although in
debt, surpasses most nations in production and consumption–the primary measure
of an economy’s prosperity according to the famed economist, Adam Smith.
Nevertheless, America is experiencing one of its greatest moral crises in
decades. Divorces are sky-rocketing; the U.S. government has legalized homosexual
marriage, abortion, and marijuana in several states; and people turn to
technology and science with the questions of life, deviating from the only One
who can provide the answers.
The
socialist author Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel, Looking Backward, portrayed a culture morally condemned by a faltering
economy in the 1800s, but a morally purified civilization under a prosperous
economy governed by socialism in the year 2000. Nevertheless, Bellamy exhibited
several flaws in Looking Backward
when he claimed that man can live in
moral perfection under a wealthy economy. By contrast, the author F. Scott
Fitzgerald saw the negative effects of a prosperous economy on the morals of
society. Fitzgerald lived the high life of the Roaring Twenties, but while he
lived the life of the frivolous and rich in his youth, he saw the moral relapse
America was in and illustrated this vividly in his most acclaimed work, The Great Gatsby. Although both authors
saw the correlation between the economy and a society’s morals, Fitzgerald correctly
saw that a prosperous economy
resulted in moral and spiritual disintegration.
Mark
Twain’s novel The Gilded Age is
attributed with naming the period of industrial and economic growth from
1877-1896. This period played a major role in Edward Bellamy’s life. America
was not only changing economically, but morally as well: “…the skyscraper and
smoke stack replaced the steeple as the skyline’s most prominent
feature….Industrialization put its golden stamp of prosperity on much of
society. The rich got richer, and even the poor got less poor.” (Keesee 353)
But hidden beneath the smog of the erected factories, materialism and
immorality consumed America and “…many Americans were trading off spiritual
values at bargain prices.” (Keesee 374)
Following
the Civil War, American industry and economic stability grew simultaneously
with the increase in population during the Industrial Revolution. The total increase
in population due to the influx of immigration and citizen reproduction jumped
from 32 million in 1860, to 92 million in 1910. This population increase
demanded westward migration of millions of Americans, calling for the
establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Furthermore, the increased
population caused a greater demand for the production of goods, thus many jobs
were created. The success of businesses caused growth, and that growth resulted
in a higher demand for laborers and commodity manufacturing. American
businesses were extraordinarily successful. Someone needed to take the reins of
these growing corporations, however, and the Captains of Industry sprang up in
America, but most of these men were insatiable.
Andrew
Carnegie, the “Steel Giant”, was one of many business giants who took advantage
of the demand for a certain commodity and formed a corrupt monopoly. Carnegie’s
steel business in particular outpaced dozens of similar manufacturers who
couldn’t keep up, allowing Carnegie to form one of the most powerful monopolies
in America. Although the “Steel Giant” was one of the major contributors to the
thriving American industries, he tenaciously denounced Christ and advocated
Darwinism in his work, The Gospel of
Wealth. The book stressed the survival of the fittest–claiming Carnegie himself
to be one of the fittest–and the importance of giving back to the unfortunate.
“Giving back,” however, was a mere ploy Carnegie (and many other corporate
heads) used for his own self-gain through manipulating the American people to commend
his generosity, a generosity that appeared fulsome, but was internally hollow.
He donated in the name of Darwinism, failing to follow the example of Christ
Jesus who “…fed the hungry with bread in order to teach them [mankind] about
the Bread of Life. Love for our neighbor is hardly complete if it gives him
food and shelter but leaves his soul in darkness.” (Keesee 371) Carnegie, along
with many other wealthy men in America, became a dreadful but effective
influence upon the American people. The monopoly holders gave a great deal of
money to the poor not out of opportunity, but obligation. This was an
unfortunate result of the economic success in America as industry continued to
rise.
The
innovative spirit of the Gilded Age made way for many other growing industries.
Developments in the sewing machine made clothing more accessible and began a
new trend in America: fashion. People began thirsting for a higher position in
society by dressing like the rich–sometimes even going so far as believing they
were rich just because they dressed extravagantly. Communication innovations
such as the typewriter, greater mobility by train, higher production in paper,
and the telephone, resulted in another new aspect of American culture: mass
media. In the form of magazines, newspapers, letters, and much more, media
found an easy route into the homes of Americans to fuel the spreading fire of
materialism. Businesses of all shapes and sizes were becoming increasingly
wealthy, epitomized by the power of monopolies during the Gilded Age. With the
promise of business success, investments in the stock market soared–America’s
economy was thriving and expanding.
America
did not achieve this economic growth without the expense of another
civilization. Many entrepreneurial Americans needed the indigenous population
of Native Americans in the West to be removed. The Sioux Indian tribe proved to
be the greatest nuisance to Americans. Time and again the U.S. tried to find ways
of tricking the Indians onto reservations planted on infertile and lackluster
grounds. When this tactic failed, Americans slaughtered thousands of buffaloes,
attempting to eliminate the greatest source of livelihood for the Sioux and
many other Indian tribes. Americans successfully coerced the Indians into
relocating their villages, but at the cost of leaving their homes and living on
barren lands. The strife between Americans and the Sioux increased until the
two resorted to murdering each other and even mutilating the dead. The tension
between the Indian’s steadfastness in their lands and American expansionism
culminated at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 where 150 Indians–half of that
number being women and children–were slaughtered, but America got its desired
expansion and profit. The genocide of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans
in the name of economic expansion during the Gilded Age was just one pollutant
of America’s affluence.
The
monopolies that began supplanting the Indian tribes with factories and rails
were becoming power-crazed and manipulative not only of the Indians, but also
of their own workers. Greedy corporations provided little accommodation for
workers who experienced unsafe working conditions, impractical working hours,
and higher prices for commodities on ludicrous wages. These injustices didn’t
go unanswered, however. Labor Unions such as the American Federation of Labor
(AFL) formed in 1881 to thwart monopoly efforts in saving a quick buck by gratuitous
means. Although the means labor unions implemented to ensure better working
conditions began peacefully, they often erupted into violent strikes, sometimes
even spurring a riot that harmed many. In 1886, the Hay Market Riot commenced. Factory
workers in Chicago demanded an eight-hour work day–a primary demand of the
AFL–and what began as a petition, ended with a an explosion that severely injured
many of the strikers, killed seven policemen and four civilians, and initiated
a violent riot–another example of harm to society spurred by the growing
economy. American culture also began to experience a destructive time of high
spending but low morals.
Industrialization
brought great economic accomplishment to America, but it “…gradually created a
substantially growing middle class with moral as well as industrial
pollutants…” (Keesee 369) America produced more than was consumed because of
industrialization and America consequently became a materialistic society with
a rising standard of living (Keesee 364). People began buying out of want
rather than necessity. They also found themselves worrying more about work and
buying the latest fads than focusing on the family. Even Christian speakers
like Russel Cronwell took part in the materialism, saying in his “Acres of
Diamonds” speech that it was the Christian’s duty to be wealthy, exclaiming to
his Christian audience, “I say, get rich, get rich.” (Keesee 373) In addition,
the focal point of Christmas strayed from celebrating the birth of Christ and it
became a holiday in which its grandeur was measured by how grand your holiday
party was, where you spent the holiday, and how many gifts you received. Apparently,
Americans ignored Christ’s words, “‘Be on your guard against all kinds of
greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’”
(Luke 12:15) But not all Americans fell into profligate spending. There was one
man who saw the immoral state his country was in and decided to act: Edward
Bellamy.
Amidst the industrious Gilded Age
and the growing American economy, Edward Bellamy saw a worsening moral
condition. He was born on March 26, 1850 in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.
Chicopee Falls, ironically, was a quaint little town unperturbed by factories,
but as the arm of the Industrial Revolution began to extend, Chicopee Falls did
not escape its grasp. The town morphed into another industrious city governed
by factories while Bellamy dismally watched this transformation ensue. This was
not Bellamy’s only influence for his writing.
Other
influences in his life included his father, a Calvinist minister, but a highly
liberal one who was ostracized by the more orthodox ministers. He instilled
Christian morals and long-term socialist principles in Bellamy. Bellamy soon
began forming his own radically socialistic views on politics and society. He
despised the church’s indifference to the social plight that America was
falling into. Bellamy decided to find ways of helping with the social issues by
taking up law, where he passed the bar exams in 1871. He later opened a law
office in Chicopee, but after his first case, he quit. The case called for him
to evict a poor widow who failed to pay rent. He was so affected by this case
that he vowed never to return to law and to pursue another route in curing
society through writing–Bellamy left law, and found fiction. Interestingly, the
case also influenced Bellamy to refrain from including law in Looking Backward, and the distress of
the ill-fated widow played a pivotal role in his views of his cultures’
problems and how he would solve them.
His
ideas on fixing the problem were largely based on socialism, which was
instilled in him not only by his liberal father, but also because he attended
Union College, New York. There he read a socialistic work by cultural reformer
Laurence Gronlund, entitled, The
Cooperative Common Wealth: An Exposition of Modern Socialism–Bellamy was
hooked. Eventually, he left Union in 1877 and began writing various short
stories such as “Six to One,” where Bellamy promoted socialism and condemned
individuality. He also wrote “Miss Ludington’s Sister,” which displayed his
views on human nature. He vehemently advocated that man is not progressing, nor
is he regressing: man’s human nature is and always will be good. Immorality,
Bellamy argued, was the result of social problems. These stories played an
important role as they paved the way for the climax of Bellamy’s socialist
reformation work, Looking Backward.
Published in 1887, Looking Backward
was Bellamy’s manifesto of a socialist (trending towards communist) reform,
addressing the issues of economic oppression on the morals of society.
The
story begins on the day of May 13, 1887 in Boston, Massachusetts. Bellamy uses
setting, conflict, historical connections, and figures of speech to illustrate
that economic despair causes moral despair. The reason Bellamy portrays a
faltering economy is because he witnessed the poor living conditions of laborers
and the controlling monopolies of the 1880s. As the book progresses, the
protagonist, Julian West, finds himself waking up over a century later in the
year 2000. At this point, the government has seized total control over nearly
every aspect of the lives of its citizens, including necessary commodities like
housing, food, and so on. This totalitarian rule, however, was not a vindictive
force that corrupted America. Instead, it was a driving force that Bellamy
claimed initiated “… [a] prodigious…moral and material transformation…”
(Bellamy 1) It was a stark contrast between the cultural, economic, and
governmental breakthrough of Bellamy’s ideal future (2000), and the depraved
cultural state of the past (1887).
Bellamy,
through the first person narrative of Julian West, gives a dreadful description
of the setting and an important conflict early in book. The setting is Boston
in 1887 where Julian West describes the staggering economy, saying, “It was
only because the masses worked very hard and live on short commons that the
race did not starve outright, and no considerable improvement in their
condition was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor.” (Bellamy
8) Nevertheless, there is still the upper class that enjoys the toil of the
lower classes, representing a major conflict where “…money alone commanded all
that was agreeable and refined in life…” (Bellamy 6) He also incorporates the
hierarchical control of monopolies and the violent unions that are fighting for
better working conditions, which not only represents another conflict, but it is
also a significant historical connection with the Gilded Age. Bellamy actually holds that the economic
system in general causes a great deal of classism, saying that corporations are
allowed to grow too powerful and gain too much wealth, and in turn, this allows
them to manipulate its laborers:
…the
organization of labor and the strikes [labor unions] were an effect, merely, of
the concentration of capital in greater masses than had ever been known
before…The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the small
employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness over against the
great corporation, while at the same time the way upward to the grade of
employer was closed to him. (Bellamy 25)
There is no doubt that
Bellamy is referring to the monopoly and union clash from his own first hand
observations. Thus, through Julian West’s narrative, Bellamy portrays an
unstable and corrupt system of economics in the nineteenth century causing
moral decline. He further supports these claims with a heroic metaphor.
Bellamy
uses a compelling figure of speech that compares the classism to “…a prodigious
coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely
along very hilly and sandy road.” (Bellamy 4) Julian continues with this
lengthy metaphor where the top of the coach affords breezy and comfortable
seats to the wealthy, while the less fortunate men, women, and even children are
forced to pull the coach along with great toil and making little progress.
(Bellamy 4) In addition, those at the top of the coach feel compassion for the
poor souls that work tirelessly, but the workers’ struggle primarily fuels the
rich to hold onto their seats more tightly (Bellamy 5). This figure of speech
displays the way the rich are taking advantage over the lower classes under a
faltering economy. Bellamy next develops a plan he believes will fix this
ongoing social plight, a system that would create a powerful coexistence
between economics and morals.
Edward
Bellamy not only uses the setting of the morally and economically crippled
1880s, he also describes the setting of a twenty-first century utopia. Dr.
Leete, Julian West’s guide in this new world, explains “…the general poverty
result[ed] from your extraordinary industrial system…” (Bellamy 20)
Furthermore, “What little wealth you [people of the 1800s] had seems almost
wholly to have been lavished in private luxury.” (Bellamy 20) In the year 2000,
however, “…there is no destination of the surplus wealth so popular as the
adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree.” (Bellamy 20) Dr. Leete
then elaborates that this financial success was made possible by society
recognizing that cooperation was the only way to thrive (Bellamy 24). He also
explains that the communistic method of establishing a publically owned capital
rather than private allows for equal prosperity across the board. The mode of production
of commodities is supplied by the mass industrial force of the twenty-first century
composed of individuals with the freedom to choose their preferred occupation,
and this production perfectly matches the demand. Because the government owns
the means of production, it divvies up the nation’s production equally. The idea of someone being impoverished is
preposterous: hunger and poverty will never again be seen in the world. The
setting of this economic utopia also coincides with a moral utopia. Julian West’s
character transformation becomes evidence of this utopia’s success.
Julian
West is introduced as a rich and aristocratic character, but as the book
progresses, his character changes profoundly. Previously, he lived among the
higher classes and took advantage of those in the lower classes, “Living in
luxury, and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of
life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no
sort of service in return.” (Bellamy 3) At the end of the book, after Julian
studies the utopia, his outlook dramatically changes when he says, “…scales had
fallen from my eyes since that vision of another century. No more did I look
upon the woeful dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures
scarcely human. I saw in them my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children,
flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.” (Bellamy 157) Julian begins as an “aristocrat” of the economically
unstable 1880s, but he transforms into a caring man who sees fellow men as his
brothers during economic perfection in the year 2000. And he continues on this
theme of moral purification during a time of great wealth.
Bellamy
sets the stage for a nearly perfected economy, and he argues this is mirrored
by the morals of the utopian society through various themes such as communism,
brotherhood, and man’s human nature. Dr. Leete says decidedly to Julian West,
“I believe that when you have made a fuller study of our people you will find
in them not only a physical, but mental and moral improvement.” (Bellamy 130) Society accomplished this utopian state
primarily by recognizing the brotherhood of mankind, and the pertinence of equally
distributing wealth and opportunity to its citizens–in short, recognizing the
importance of communism. Fighting is obsolete once individualism is eliminated
and supplanted with brotherhood: “Individualism…was fatal to any vital
sentiment of brotherhood and common interest among living men…” (Bellamy 130)
What’s more, the majority of the people are God-loving and selfless, epitomizing
the characteristics of Christian ideologies. “The lust for honor replaced the
lust for money….By requiring of everyman his best you have made God his
task-master, and by making honor the sole reward of achievement you have
imparted to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldier’s.”
(Bellamy 77-78) Corruption was a thing of the past, and because of the newfound
equality, people’s capacity for love was something previous generations only
dreamed of. In other words, this era of economic perfection corresponds with
moral purity. This is accomplished, as a twentieth century preacher claims,
when mankind realizes “…human nature in its essential qualities is good, not
bad, that men by their natural intention and structure are generous, not
selfish, pitiful, not cruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, godlike in
aspirations…” (Bellamy 140)
Edward
Bellamy wrongly accused a stagnant economy as the cause of the moral dilapidation
of the Gilded Age. The promotion of competition in business and stocks incites
ruthless competition among the people involved. Eventually, certain
corporations become powerful and commit various atrocities against its workers
and its buyers, as illustrated by the monopolies of the Gilded Age. In
addition, Bellamy says the increase in competition among corporations
subsequently diminishes the cooperation and brotherhood of mankind, converting
them into savages trying to tear down one another. Although this is an accurate
assessment of the economic system, Bellamy portrays this occurrence as the
result of economic struggles in the 1880s. But the moral downfall of the Gilded
Age that Edward Bellamy observed actually resulted from exponential economic
growth in the latter half of the Industrial Revolution. Thus, Bellamy was right
in his assessment of depraved moral condition, but he was inaccurate in
describing a suffering economy as the cause. In fact, it was the economic
growth that was to blame for the moral scarcity. Not only was Bellamy slightly
misled in the respect of America’s economy in the 1880s, but he was outright
incorrect when he made one of his most important claims.
Edward
Bellamy, in Looking Backward, argues
that man’s nature was, is, and will be good. Since the first man and woman, Adam
and Eve, consumed the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
man has been filled with sin. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans saying, “I
know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” (Romans
7:18) Man cannot possibly be capable of resisting the temptation of materialism
and self-gain when economic prosperity makes those temptations so prevalent in
his life, for it is not man who falls easily into these temptations, it is the
sin that resides in his condemned nature. Thus, Bellamy was out of place to deny man’s
wicked nature and believe he could remain morally pure under a prosperous
economy.
Although
Bellamy exhibited these flaws, he did see a connection between the economic
system and morality. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald formed a unique outlook on his
society, in which he removed himself from the rest of his generation to see an
underlying immoral way of life caused not by economic struggle, but by economic
opulence.
The
1920s were a time of unprecedented economic growth. Businesses produced
commodities at an exponential rate, and this production was met with the zealous
consumption of the people. Under the leadership of President Calvin Coolidge, abiding
by his motto, “The business of America is business,” American industry and the
stock market soared. (Keesee, 472) But buried deep under mattress sales, movie
theaters, and sports radio, lay an utterly immoral generation. The “flaming
youth” and “frivolous flappers” personified the new era of rebellion,
unorthodoxy, and sinfulness without care (Keesee 467). Because of the vast economic wealth, Americans
found themselves falling into the trap of despotic materialism, causing
increased divorce rates, murders, drunkenness, immorality, and government
scandals to become all too prevalent in the 1920s.
When
Coolidge took the reins in 1923, the economy reached its peak. The Coolidge administration
lowered income tax for the tax payers, while simultaneously increasing the
gross national income from $59.4 billion in 1921 to $87.2 billion in 1929. Coolidge
promoted business energetically which boosted business and industrial growth
throughout the country. Driven by industrial and private business growth, American
companies supplied more American jobs, resulting not only in an increased average
income from $522 to $716 for the common American, but also a rise in production
which was met with an exponentially great rise in consumption. “The American
citizen’s first importance to his country is no longer that of a citizen, but
that of consumer. Consumption is a new necessity…” (Pietrusza 17) The rise in
spending and consuming contributed to the growth of businesses in America, thus
generating a greater output of products, and this was met with a necessary rise
in consumption–an economically rewarding cycle of prosperity that continuously
repeated. Timothy Keesee notes, “Everyone talked about a ‘return to normalcy’
after the horrors of World War I (1914-1918), but what they got was ten years
of growth, modernization, revelry, and rebellion, such as the United States had
never seen before.” (Yancey, 8) America’s economy was modernizing, urbanizing,
manufacturing, and thriving. Because of the rate of production and consumption,
by 1929 Americans were spending over $7 billion dollars a year. This success in
business was further mirrored by the success of the stock market.
Along
with the increase in manufacturing, the stock market was also on the rise.
Because of the increase of profits, companies grew, evoking optimism among
investors as they flooded the stock market with investments looking to get rich
quick–an ideology held dearly at the time. From 1920 to 1929, investors augmented stocks
from 223 million shares to over one billion, marking the first time the stock
market broke one billion shares. As the economy’s prosperity increased, the
wealth of individual Americans naturally increased. With this increase in
wealth, Americans in the 1920s consequently became materialistic and shallow as
money and commodities became the priority of life.
The
1920s was named the Age of Excess for a reason. The “flaming youth” were the
epitome of the social standard. They began a trend of rebellion in fashion,
music, and excessive immoral behavior: “Immorality became glamorous and virtue
was too old-fashioned for many of the pleasure-seeking young people of the
era.” (Keesee 474) They broke curfew, rules, and sometimes, the law. Because
young women–often known as flappers–enjoyed their newfound independence in
getting full time jobs–due to the rise in American businesses–they became
distracted from their roles as mothers and spouses. The lack of nurturing and
faithful women in America resulted in an increase in the divorce rate in the
‘20s by 2000%, surpassing the increase of population of 300% and leading to a
gradual decline of the average American family. Adultery’s implications became
insignificant and common. Furthermore, people began idolizing their favorite
characters of crime and adventure and lost touch with reality, focusing greatly
on buying and keeping up with the latest fads and fiction. Some men even chose to
go out to a ball game to get out of the house and have alone time away from the
family. One comical conversation between a husband and wife portrays this new
lifestyle well: “One more payment and the furniture is ours.” explained the
husband, “Good,” responded the wife, “then we can throw it out and get some new
stuff.”(Yancey 18) Even politics was afflicted with this lust for money.
The
1920s was well known for the times of spending and thriving; but it was
notorious for the beginning of great moral decline: “Moral crusades were out,
replaced with a sometimes mindless pursuit of frolic and frivolity.” (Keesee
467) Scandals and corruption tempted political officials with the rise in desire
for material gain. Two well known scandals in the ‘20s, the Teapot Dome and the
Veterans’ Bureau, were major headlines and great examples of this political
corruption. In the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert B. Fall and two of his friends
defrauded navy oil reserves for millions of dollars. In the Veteran’s Bureau
scandal, Charles Forbes defrauded the bureau and stole millions from an
organization formed to give aid to returning vets. Beyond scandals, new
philosophies, such as Darwinism and Marxism, were gaining prominence in the lost
generation and drew people away from Biblical truths and principles.
Unfortunately,
as historian Timothy Keesee observed, “Behind the glitter…new philosophies
ravaged the moral character of a generation – a society which poet T.S. Eliot
characterized as a ‘wasteland.’” (Keesee 473) It was a wasteland indeed. It was
a time of prosperity in money, but poverty in morals. “American society seemed
shallower than ever before, lacking in vision or idealism, obsessed with
material things, hypocritical, and dehumanizing.” (Yancey 37) F. Scott
Fitzgerald experienced this shallowness of the Jazz Age and condemned its
fallen condition in one of the best novels of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby. (Sparknotes)
Fitzgerald
was born in St. Paul Minnesota, 1896, and his academic life was unimpressive,
but his writing skills were quickly recognized. He attended various schools in
his younger years, such as St. Paul Academy and Newman School, where he had
very little motivation and performed poorly. He was, however, an avid reader
and writer. His writing started with “The Mystery of Raymond Mortgage,” a short
story for his school’s newspaper. Fitzgerald wrote with unique style and
description that his teachers and peers had never read before. Although he
tried very little to succeed in school, he still managed to attend Princeton University
in 1914. At Princeton, he focused more on his writing than his studies, and his
writing career was about to take off.
Fitzgerald
soon flunked out of Princeton and joined the army in 1917, remaining in the States
for the duration of his service. His performance as a soldier mirrored his
performance as a student: careless and irresponsible. Nevertheless, he met a
highly significant person in his life, Zelda Sayre. Awe stricken by Zelda’s
grace and beauty, Fitzgerald almost immediately fell in love. He quickly asked
her to spend their lives together. Zelda denied the proposal at first, saying
Fitzgerald needed to become successful before she would even consider marriage.
Zelda, in the meantime, started and ended several different relationships with
other bachelors. Fitzgerald did everything in his power to meet Zelda’s lust
for wealth and status, and in 1920, he wrote his first celebrated novel, This Side of Paradise. The novel became
popular and made the young writer very wealthy, and he finally won Zelda Sayre
over, marrying her in the same year. They had a child, Francis Scott “Scottie”
Fitzgerald, in 1921. Fitzgerald and Zelda were seemingly disinterested in the
child throughout their lives, however. This disinterest was highly evident when
the young couple began spending their spoils from This Side of Paradise to live the life of the “flaming youth.”
Fitzgerald
and Zelda began living the lavish life of parties, materialism, and drinking.
Zelda began acting irrationally and even had a brief affair. Fitzgerald’s life
was deteriorating in front of him, and he resorted to alcoholism in his
despair. He began to see the materialism and moral decline that festered not
only in his own life, but the lives of many Americans, especially the youth. In
response to these observations, Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925 to reveal pressing issues in the Jazz Age
culture, a culture that was rapidly declining morally and spiritually.
Interestingly, no one fully appreciated the carefully woven message in the
novel or its talented author for fifteen years.
The Great Gatsby
brilliantly displays the shallowness and emptiness of the Roaring Twenties, “The
staid conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were turned on
their ear as money, opulence, and exuberance became order of the day.”
(Sparknotes) Fitzgerald’s excessive and erratic lifestyle makes a clear
appearance in the book, and through the use of characterization, setting, and symbolism,
Fitzgerald voices his disapproval of his desolate life in a desolate age.
Three
of the main characters, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Nick Callaway,
represent three important lifestyles. Jay Gatsby hails from a “rags to riches”
background. His character represents the many Americans who chase after what
seems to be a fulsome dream but is quite the opposite. Gatsby lives a luxurious
and wealthy life and attempts to fill the voids in his life with money and the love
of his life, Daisy. This is seemingly identical to Fitzgerald’s courting of
Zelda Sayre. When Gatsby returns from the war, he finds Daisy has taken another
man as husband, Tom Buchanan, a hardened aristocrat living comfortably with
Daisy on his great inheritance. This provokes Gatsby to work extensively in
bootlegging to gain great wealth and impress Daisy with grand parties. Nevertheless,
she never attends the parties, and Gatsby glares lustfully at the green light
at the end of Daisy’s dock–his dream girl is close. When the two finally meet
for tea, it begins as an awkward gathering but grows into a scandalous affair while
Daisy remains married to Tom. When Gatsby becomes increasingly close with Daisy,
he begins to realize that his wealth and Daisy are not as wholesome dreams as he
once thought. What’s more, she continues to lead Gatsby on, but in the end, she
turns away from Gatsby and chooses Tom; she even goes on a luxurious vacation
with Tom instead of attending Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby’s character illustrates
how the wealth of Americans causes them to try to fill their lives with parties
and empty relationships in hopes of filling the void in their lives. They fail
to realize that only faith in Christ can fill that seemingly bottomless void of
despair. Characters like Daisy never see the light.
Daisy’s character epitomizes the generation’s
immoral values and lifestyle in the 1920s. Her shallow selfishness is present
throughout the book, “‘I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done
everything….Sophisticated–God, I’m sophisticated!” she exclaims, admiring her
previous observation that, “‘…the best thing a girl can be in this world…[is] a
beautiful little fool.” (Fitzgerald 17) In addition, Daisy exemplifies the role
of the youth and their dependence on wealth, thinking of themselves as “…safe
and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.” (Fitzgerald 150) Daisy also represents
the seductive and selfish women of the ‘20s who tempt the wealthy and
materialistic men, represented by Gatsby. There is a glimmer of hope, nonetheless,
found in Nick Callaway.
Nick
Callaway is the first person narrator and primary protagonist in The Great Gatsby. His internal struggle
mirrors Fitzgerald’s: both fight contrasting interests in the high life of the
Jazz Age, and a life structured on tranquil lifestyles and moral principle.
Nick attends a party held by Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, and drinks heavily while
enjoying the chaos of the party. Later in the book, Nick attends a party hosted
by Gatsby and observes the arrogance and childish behavior of the guests,
“Most of the
remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands...One
of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife,
after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way,
broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks – at intervals she appeared
suddenly at the side like an angry diamond…” (Fitzgerald 51)
Nick further displays this
struggle through Jordan Baker. He is instantly attracted to her when he first
meets her, but he progressively loses interest in her when he realizes she is
just as shallow as all the other flappers. Nick’s inward conflict illustrates
Fitzgerald’s own life and how he lives out this conflict in which he realizes
the effect wealth has on his generation’s immoral lifestyle. Besides these
characterizations, Fitzgerald incorporates other means of getting his message
across.
Symbolism
is one of the most important facets in The
Great Gatsby. One of these symbols, the green light on Daisy’s pier,
represents the American dream of the 1920s that was typically materialistic. In
Gatsby’s case, it represented his dream of being with Daisy, but when he
finally is with her, “the colossal significance of that light had vanished
forever….His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” (Fitzgerald 93)
The modern American dream reveals itself to be an empty and unwholesome one,
and Daisy turns out to be nothing but another material object he successfully
obtains, but loses. Cars were also used symbolically. In one occasion, Daisy
drives erratically and Nick comments:
“‘You’re a rotten driver…Either you
ought to be more careful, or you oughtn’t to drive at all.’
‘I am careful.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Well, other people are,’ she said
lightly.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘They’ll keep out of my way,’ she
insisted. ‘It takes two to make an accident.’” (Fitzgerald 58)
The cars illustrate the
recklessness and carelessness of the young generation. There is also a great
consequence to this irresponsibility, Fitzgerald argues, when Daisy runs over
Myrtle and kills her, ultimately leading to Gatsby’s death at the hands of
Myrtle’s husband, Mr. Wilson. Fitzgerald brilliantly uses these symbols to depict
how wealth generated by a prospering economy produces an increasingly careless
generation, and he sends a clear message that there are consequences to their
immorality. He doesn’t stop there, however.
Fitzgerald
gives a vivid description of the melancholy setting in the story called the
Valley of Ashes, where the common man of the era resides:
a fantastic farm
where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where
ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke, and, finally,
with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through
the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible
track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the
ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud
which screens their obscure operations from your sight. (Fitzgerald 23)
The
ashes and cars represent the urbanizing culture and prominent economy of the
1920s, while the darkness and solemnity in the description represent a morally
decaying society. And within this solemn setting, adultery, murder, and
materialism are common occurrences.
At
the end of The Great Gatsby, Nick
acts as Fitzgerald’s voice which summarizes the state of society. Nick begins
saying, “…I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house
once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a
piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my
shoe raspingly along the stone.” (Fitzgerald 179-180) The dilapidated house
represents the moral condition of humanity. The white steps with an obscene
word scribbled over them illustrate the moral purity that America once had which
is now scrawled over by an immoral gesture of an immature youngster. Nick then
refers to the diminishing “American Dream” and morality:
I became aware
of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes–a fresh,
green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way
for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of
all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his
breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic
contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time
in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. (Fitzgerald
180)
Gatsby’s house,
representing the new sinful culture, replaces the originally unpolluted and
lush land of America with the ideology of parties, materialism, and empty dreams,
facets of the 1920s that deteriorate America’s moral standards. Fitzgerald,
through Nick Callaway’s narration, demonstrates that these ideologies did not
spawn themselves. The iniquitous culture Fitzgerald found himself in is the
indirect result of a prosperous economy enriching the people to the point of
excess. He concludes that fellow men rooted in moral principle oppose dreadful
force, saying, “So we beat on, boats against the current…”–a strong current of
immorality in the Jazz Age.
An analysis of two works reveals that The Great Gatsby clearly depicts the
negative affect a prosperous economy has on morals, but Looking Backward seems to tell a different story. F. Scott
Fitzgerald wrote in vivid descriptive and symbolic language that captured many
readers, but within the symbolism, characterization, setting, and so on, he
displays the fundamental issues with his generation resulting from the
exceptional state of the economy and, thus, a great amount of individual
wealth. Edward Bellamy, however, has a
contrasting opinion in Looking Backward.
By using literary techniques much like Fitzgerald did, he expresses the ideology
of an immoral society dictated by the lackluster economy. Further along in the
story, however, Bellamy delves into his socialistic utopia where the perfected
moral condition corresponds with a perfected economy. Because he asserted that man’s inherent good
would enable him to live a moral life under a prosperous economy, he violates a
fundamental biblical doctrine.
“Let
us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in
sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissention and jealousy. Rather,
clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to
gratify your desires of sinful nature.” (Romans 13:14) The words of Paul are profound,
but when an economy becomes prosperous, it becomes difficult for man to contain
his sinful nature. After analyzing the Jazz Age through the eyes of F. Scott
Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, and
the industrious Gilded Age through Bellamy’s in Looking Backward, it is clear that both eras were a time of great
moral deterioration. Both authors observed
the moral and spiritual decline of their respective cultures stemming from the
economy. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald was the one who realized that the moral
dilapidation of his generation was the result of a prosperous economy.
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