After the atrocities of WWI broke the placid loveliness of Victorian writing, new writers chose to hold a mirror up to society in less flattering light. Modernist literature is known for its language rather than its content, using words to challenge traditional morals. Modernism can be described as critical and dispassionate. (Keep, McLaughlin and Parmar)
Fitzgerald's works, most influentially "This Side of Paradise", twist modernist writing by combining the prettiness of romanticism and the honesty of realism. His novels use beautiful imagery that truly paint a much darker picture of society. (Tate 231)

Modernism

'“Say, Fitzgerald,” he said, “say! Will you tell me this: What in the blinkety-blank-blank has a man of your age got to go saying these pessimistic things for? What’s the idea?” I tried to laugh him off.'

- what I think and feel at 25

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