F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

America in the 1920s experienced massive changes at a rapid pace: Between the Great War and the Spanish Flu, millions of people died suddenly. There were battles against alcohol, which resulted in Prohibition on one side and rampant black market speakeasies on the other. Women were able to vote, they were joining the work force, cutting their hair, shortening their skirts. The change in fashion from 1915 to 1925 was unlike anything we’ve seen before or since.

And right in the middle of all the action was F Scott Fitzgerald. He and his wife Zelda were described as the “prince and princess” of the Jazz Age. Their exploits around New York City were stuff of legends. They drank and partied and lived it up…until they didn’t. Sadly, both died very broken and fairly young.

Although The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 – the height of the Jazz Age and of the Fitzgerald’s fame – it reflects what was broken about this era.

Jay Gatsby was a legend himself. In fact, in the novel, the reader has to wait three chapters (almost 1/3 of the book) before meeting him. He is discussed, rumors fly about him, his parties are described in detail. But he is a mystery. The narrator, and Gatsby’s next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, discovers Gatsby is more than any of the rumors, “better than all the others put together”.

But Gatsby has a fatal flaw – love for the shallow Daisy Buchanan. He fell for her when he was a young soldier stationed in Louisville and built his entire grand empire with her in mind: If he could just make enough money, become “great”, she would be his. And it worked…for a while. But this is a tragedy. And, without giving away too much of the ending, his dreams do not come true.

This novel asks the question, Is the American Dream really possible? And the answer, according to Fitzgerald, is a resounding “no”. We can’t get anything we want, not even if we work really hard. And no one ever “has it all.” Everyone lives behind a facade.

Looking at this work from a biblical worldview, we can see the longing people have – to be “important”, to be loved, to have value. These desires aren’t wrong. I believe they are God-given! But they can only be realized through a relationship with Christ. In Him, we have immense value, we are deeply and eternally loved. To seek those things apart from Christ is futile. Fitzgerald saw the futility but, sadly, he didn’t see that there is hope, that salvation from meaningless life is available.