English 11 / Unit 5: Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance
5.3 Fitzgerald, Hemingway and the Lost Generation
Notes
The Lost Generation refers to writers who came of age during World War I and felt cut off from traditional values. Many lived in Paris in the 1920s.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) is set in the Jazz Age. The narrator Nick Carraway observes Jay Gatsby, whose wealth and devotion to Daisy Buchanan show the dream and the emptiness of chasing status. The green light at the end of Daisy's dock symbolizes longing for an unreachable future.
- Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, 1926) developed a spare style: short sentences and understatement. His "iceberg theory" says the deeper meaning lies beneath the surface of what is stated.
- Themes: the corruption of the American Dream, loss, and emptiness behind glamour.
- Worked example: Nick's role as a limited observer lets readers judge Gatsby while Nick's own honesty is also questioned.
Practice
In The Great Gatsby, the green light mainly symbolizes:
The light stands for desire and the American Dream.
Hemingway's "iceberg theory" means that:
Understatement lets readers infer meaning.
Why does Fitzgerald tell the story through Nick Carraway?
Nick is a witness whose perspective shapes how we see the events.
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