The Criticism of the Spectacle in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-up

The Crack-up is a record of Fitzgerald's insights and critiques of life experiences late in his writing career. By documenting different landscapes in American society, it exposes the money-worship, consumerism, materialism, and blind admiration for celebrity in American society during the Jazz Age, which was so prevalent that people became spiritually empty and anxious, even to the point of confusion and disillusionment. This paper aims to explore the typical societal spectacles in The Crack-up through Guy Debord's theory— the society of the spectacle and analyze its causes and consequences. Thus, it exposes a cycle of "materialism beginning- consumerism boosting materialism- social pressure stimulating anxiety - treating material things more cynically".