A VISION OF TRANSCENDENCE- SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY (1925)

Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) continues to engage our sensibilities even today. A journey through the book makes us realize that the people and the predicaments they face resonate in today’s world too. Through the novel Fitzgerald showed the ‘roaring twenties’ but the novel’s roar continues to be heard. Scott Fitzgerald who belonged to ‘The Lost Generation’ has created a multi-layered character a paradox holding glitter and darkness. The chaotic age had to lead to a significant creativity and the result gave birth to Stephens, Gatsbys… who showed that though human existence is eternal, it has to face distinct tests born out of a particular time and situation. The gamut of modernist writers had one thing in common and that was the anxiety or ‘angst’ that they shared. An anxiety that had given an impetus for ‘expression’; an expression that showcased the load and the emptiness that life carried during the post-modern times. The American dream had lost its fresh appeal in this decade and seemed an empty container, filled by the hollow presumptions of the times. “Fraternity” carried no meaning; “liberty,” was wrongly interpreted. There was no longer a “pursuit of happiness,” but a “pursuit of pleasure.” Thus the Jazz Age glowed brightly, so brightly that it had ‘blinded’ its people and the dark shadows were not noticed by them for a long time to come The observation and then the transformation of the historical fact in an imaginative manner is the way the novelist uses his material in the fictional design. The process involves sifting and marshalling of the material of life by the author to create a work of art that would be valid not just as a verification of the past but that which would also serve to mirror the present. For, what determines a historical fact is its truthfulness and objectivity. The paper addresses the aspect of how the transitory moments of history crystallize into an enduring world of fiction, a world of permanence, signaling the triumph of the imaginative powers of the novelist and at the same time delivering an ageless vision for humanity.