A Review of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: Rethinking Illusion and Ethical Collapse in Modern Criticism

The paper suggests critical evaluation of the current academic explanations of the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly the related notions of illusion and moral or in other words an ethical decline. Since the discussion of these ideas as separate issues is replaced by the issues of how they are related and support each other in the method of narrative construction of the said novel, this study also addresses the relationship of these ideas themselves. Following the method of qualitative literature review, the paper will also analyze both conventional and new critical perceptions. It also relies on theoretical visions which were based on the works of Albert Camus and Thorstein Veblens, and which were framed with the understanding of how meaning, morality and identity are produced, confronted, and harmed within the original text. The findings show that illusion acts as a key component in shaping real recognition in the characters, which in turn, sequentially affect ethical decay. Also, this paper concludes that the moral decadence in the said novel would not be looked at as an isolated failure of an individual, but a broader structural phenomenon influenced by cultural and social forces. The assessment or analysis also indicates that a great part of current analysis generally separates both illusion and ethical issues, in the sense of noting the more profound and complex relationship. Through its involvement in such perceptions, this paper also identifies a more comprehensible interpretation of The Great Gatsby, in which it is simultaneously a social commentary of Jazz Age, and a philosophical commentary on the existential uncertainty or ambiguity of the modern era.