Desire and the Twentieth-Century Experience in the Work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald

The early 1920s was a time of increased wealth and prosperity for America. The rise of industrialization produced a working class and a wealthy class that were worlds apart.

While the working class worked hard and stressed morals, the wealthy class lived leisurely and lavishly. Twentieth-century American literature reflected these times, leaving behind the romantic and spiritual world of the past for the harsh realities of modern society.

Literary critic James T. Farrell explained this transformation in literary history in his "Social Themes in American Realism": "From the 1890's to the present, American realistic novelists have tried to tell something of the story of the cost of American civilization in terms of human and personal consequences."

Authors moved away from traditional themes that emphasized morals and values and instead revealed real human fears, emotions and desires of the time so readers could relate to their characters. Novelists such as Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway used themes of desire as fundamental elements that motivated their characters.

In each of their works, these authors presented intricate, self-conscious characters that desired wealth, love and pleasure in order to attain their overarching dreams.

While materialism grew in part due to the media's ever-increasing influence, twentieth-century novels illustrated the human desire for wealth and fame. In The Professor's House, Willa Cather depicted a detached and collapsed family consumed by the powers of materialism and wealth.

After Louie and Rosamond inherited the wealth from Tom Outland's vacuum invention, Kathleen described her desire to earn wealth and material goods similar to her sister: "‘I can't help it, Father. I am envious, I don't think I would be if she let me alone, but she comes here with her magnificence and takes the life out of all our poor little things. Everybody knows she's rich, why does she have to keep rubbing it in?'"