Living in a Material World: Men & Women in
The Great Gatsby and Bright Lights, Big City

The twentieth century, according to historian Harold Evans, is "the American century" and belongs to the United States by virtue of "the triumph of its faith in its founding idea of political and economic freedom."[91] In 1931, James T. Adams defined this founding idea as a shared dream, "The American Dream" of a

land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement . . . It is not a dream of motorcars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.[92]

But as Fitzgerald and McInerney's works show, motor cars, high wages, and the other trappings of a life lived through style can form impediments to the process of recognizing others for what they truly are. The 1920s and the 1980s were two extreme decades when the ideology of materialism was at its height. These eras enlarge the modern American cultural tendency to define happiness and even personal identity through the consumption of consumer goods. Fitzgerald and McInerney both focus on the effect such definitions have on the minority group most suited to following such styles of living, namely wealthy, white, young men and their female counterparts. Their insecurity and isolation from each other is the harsh reality of an existence based upon self-gratification and perpetual desire. The flood of the new has buried the body of tradition, but endless hedonism results in a soulless pursuit of fun, without depth or meaning. And yet, the absence of desire is equally destructive, equally as empty. To subsist without a dream is a form of living death, and the ultimate form of isolation. But the dream must be real, not based in material expression or an ideal that does violence to the self and others. The individual self must be rooted in a sense of connection with others as subjects and not as objects or ideals. Living in a material world requires loving in a real one.

Fitzgerald and McInerney form their critiques of the American dream partially from their experiences of romance. Although Benjamin Spencer is discussing Fitzgerald, his observation holds true for McInerney as well: "As for the American dream, he seems to cherish it as the indispensable root of a living culture whose flower will always be blighted. The disillusion, the vulgarization, the exploitation are inevitable; but better these than the sterile and corrupt despair of its absence."[93] The same can be said for their belief in the power of love. Of course, the breakdown of heterosexual romance in the culture of affluence is not these authors' only focus. Both deal with social issues regarding incest, the loss of personal potential, the effects of self-abuse, the destructive nature of families, the difficult treatment of homosexuality, and other subjects that deserve study. "F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . felt that writers have one or two truly powerful experiences in their lives and [then spend their] careers telling the story of the resulting emotion over and over. McInerney's most powerful experience to date has been, apparently, being dumped by a model. Proof of his skill and artistry is found in the fact that from this personal trifle he has written some of the most relevant literature of our time."[94] Romance and its destruction are simply one important factor in these authors' most beautiful and most telling critiques of the modern age.