Alarm Bell In The Jazz Age

Francis Scott Fitzgerald is a bright star in American literary circle. His works vividly reflect social life, view of value and culture change in the Jazz Age. Fitzgeraldian criticism has in recent years set aside the questions of the disillusionment of American Dream and concentrated on other issues, such as his portraits of women, autobiographic features, double vision, modernism and youth culture in his works. Moreover, scholars at home and aboard began to turn to the relationship between Fitzgerald and his works through the perspective of consumer culture recently, with their focus on The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s works are influenced by consumer culture a lot, and the material world of consumer culture has a profound effect on language, image and the development of the story. More importantly, consumption is closely connected with every character’s destiny in the book. Behind the connection, the serious social problems in the Jazz Age are revealed. By analyzing the relationships between consumption and human beings in three aspects in The Great Gatsby from the perspective of consumerism, this paper probes into the problems in the Jazz Age. The study of consumer culture relies on modern consumption theory, including Jean Baudrillard’s theory of sign value, Bourdieu Pierre’s theory of class distinction and the Marxism consumption alienation theory. Besides introduction and conclusion, the thesis can be divided into three chapters.Chapter One is mainly about consumption and human’s social identity. Section one introduces that in the Jazz age, the sign value of objects is more emphasized in consumption. Therefore, Gatsby can lead a life like a man from the upper class by lavish consumption. Section two reveals the illusion of Gatsby’s created identity, for his habitus and taste are incompatible with those of the upper class. The identity constructed by consumption is fragile and transient. In the Jazz Age, there were few ways for the youth to break the barrier of classes, and the social mobility was worsening.Chapter Two focuses on consumption and human’s spiritual world, including love and religious belief. Section one mainly discusses how love is reduced to commodity for profit. Pursuit for self-interest is a natural instinct for human beings. Hence, it is naturally for Daisy, Mrs. Wilson and Tom to treat love as commodity to exchange for profits. Section two explores how traditional religion is replaced by commodity. Puritanism hinders the rising of consumerism and development of pleasure-seeking culture, such as party culture or driving culture in this story. As a result, commodity turns into the new “religion”, worshipped by the public. In the Jazz Age, commodity has occupied the barren and void spiritual world of human beings.Chapter Three deals with consumption and human’s living environment. Section one probes into the Westward Movement’s transformation to the Midwest. The force of trade and material desire exploits the natural beauty, gradually turning the Midwest into the artificial world like the East. Section two discusses how the alienated artificial environment alienates human beings. In the story, Daisy and Mrs. Wilson are squeezed and enslaved by commodity. Their tragedies are revealed by the reification of themselves as well as alienated relationships. In the Jazz Age, the force of consumption alienated both environment and human beings.From the above discussion, we can find that in the Jazz Age, consumption has completely controlled human beings in the aspects of social identity, spiritual world and living environment. Consumption brings happiness and pleasure, but its delight and satisfaction are more likely to be tempting and dangerous. It allures people from all classes to fall into the abyss of corruption. In chasing pleasure, everyone is a living death. Fitzgerald’s vivid and careful description of these social problems in consumer society is thought provoking. Even to this day, The Great Gatsby still rings the alarm bell for all of us.