ican life in the 1920s, a society changed in the aftermath of World War I, as the author and his peers quickly came to realize that the illusions and dreams that they had cherished as children and teenagers lacked true substance.
The Great Gatsby thus reflects a thoroughly modern sensibility, as Fitzgerald imbues his narrative with details that reflect contemporary life in the 1920s. When describing the preparations for one of Gatsby's parties, Nick, Fitzgerald's narrator, comments that "the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile" (44). The reader is given a taste of what life in 1920s America is like, but there is a larger reason behind Fitzgerald's decision to include such details. Ronald Berman maintains that "Production, entertainment, style, and consumption are native subjects of modernism, often displacing what is merely natural. In the case of a certain billboard featuring Doctor T. J. Eckleburg - both symbol and sign of the
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