Psychoanalytical Study of American Society in the 1920s from the View of F.S. Fitzgerald

Abstract

In the 1920s, American society had been already filled with romantic wonder and riches. However, the Materialism that resulted from rapid industrialization ruined universal hopes and ideal values of the American society including American Dream and American Traditional Innocence and so on. The aim of this thesis is to look into and examine the characters’ social backgrounds in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with regard to psychoanalytical perspectives, which help us to understand whether the atmosphere of American society was matched or not in the 1920s. Thus, as one way to closely approach these issues, we analyze the states of mind within the characters focused on Freudian and Jungian notion of psychoanalysis theories. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. there are three steps(=Id-Ego-Super Ego) that play parts in moral judgment and control within the states of human mind. Therefore, when psychoanalytic theory applies to the characters in The Great Gatsby, we can distinguish them as three groups; Firstly, the main character, Gatsby, who didn’t realize ideal values of American society in the 1920s represents the Ego world. Secondly, an observant bastard Tom and his wife Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan are in the Id state. In fact, we are willing to say that Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is his autobiographical work to apprise the corruption of American society at that time he lived. Hence, the reason why Freud’s theory was applied to the characters in The Great Gatsby is to help not only understand many persons’ psychology from the characters of Fitzgerald’s work on American society in the 1920s but also heal those who live in the modern society through the psychoanalytical approach.