Jazz Age Puritanism
One of the strangest experiences in American literature is reading a story by the man who made a hero of Gatsby that situates its overarching theme within a strain of Puritan morality. What this novels says loudest before it whispers anything else is that hard work, diligence, an underlining moral foundation and a sense of modesty is the key to success. The wife and husband at the center of the story exhibit none of these traits. They are, to put it plainly, everything that Puritans are not; excessively and immodestly so. Would their lives have turned out as they wanted had they been otherwise? Well, that’s the whole point of another important theme.
Generational Damnation
In just three generations the Patch family goes from working to attain great success to that indolence the Puritans warned would be the nation’s undoing. Anthony Patch is everything that his grandfather was not at the same age and—worse for him—an example of everything his grandfather has come to despise in his old age. Adam Patch is presented more as the social reformer who has become a bore than the boorish young wolf of Wall Street which serves to draw the lines between he and his grandson even more starkly. Adam is the American Dream come true. Anthony is the American Dream corrupted. The difference is the between the generation that pays off the debt incurred for the advantages enjoyed while succeeding generation enjoys advantages that only serve to incur debt.
The Destructive Effects of Alcohol
The liquor always flows freely in a Fitzgerald novel. For most of his more famous characters, the alcohol cannot be situated as a major element in their self-destruction. Gatsby, for instance, has a showdown with tragedy, but not due to excessive alcoholic consumption. Anthony and Gloria are not due the sympathy that comes with contemporary views on alcoholism. Even were they not drunks, they would still end up as the big losers in the novel. That said, it is absolutely beyond argument that things are made considerably worse by the abundant intake of spirits. This character trait should be considered in light of the fact that the couple are said to be loosely based on the younger days of when Fitzgerald was well on his way to alcoholism and his wife, Zelda, was mixing her liquor with mental illness.
