What is the role of the American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”?

From Conflict to Identity: Main Issues Explored in US Literary Education - Ievgen Sykalo 2026

What is the role of the American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”?

entry

Entry — Contextual Frame

The American Dream's Dark Mirror

Core Claim F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," published in 1922, refracts the Jazz Age's alluring promise of limitless wealth through a lens of moral decay, revealing the era's anxieties about unchecked ambition.
Entry Points
  • Post-WWI Economic Boom: The rapid economic expansion following World War I fueled a widespread belief in rapid, self-made fortunes, because this context made the Washingtons' absurd wealth seem like an extreme, yet aspirational, possibility to a contemporary audience.
  • Conspicuous Consumption: The era's embrace of lavish display and material excess, because Fitzgerald uses the Washingtons' estate to hyperbolize this cultural trend, exposing its inherent emptiness and moral cost.
  • Moral Relativism: A societal shift away from Victorian strictures, because the Washingtons' casual disregard for human life reflects a profound moral vacuum enabled by their isolation and the perceived omnipotence of their wealth.
  • Technological Advancement: The rapid pace of innovation and human mastery over nature, because the story's fantastical elements, such as the diamond mountain itself, play on the era's belief in humanity's ability to control and exploit the natural world for profit.
Think About It How does the story's fantastical premise of a diamond mountain comment on the actual economic and social structures emerging in 1920s America, rather than simply offering an escapist fantasy?
Thesis Scaffold F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) uses the Washington family's isolated, diamond-fueled empire to critique the Jazz Age's illusion of prosperity, arguing that unchecked material ambition inevitably corrupts moral and social bonds.
psyche

Psyche — Character as System

John T. Unger: The Allure of the Gilded Cage

Core Claim John T. Unger's rapid moral compromise demonstrates how the American Dream, when presented as absolute material comfort, can dismantle an individual's ethical framework.
Character System — John T. Unger
Desire To escape the mundane, to experience extraordinary wealth and privilege, specifically to marry Kismine and live a life of effortless luxury.
Fear Of returning to his ordinary life, of losing access to the Washingtons' world, and ultimately, of being killed to protect their secret.
Self-Image Initially a curious, somewhat naive outsider; quickly transforms into a complicit participant in the Washingtons' amoral universe.
Contradiction He is repulsed by the Washingtons' casual cruelty, yet he actively participates in their system and seeks to benefit from it until his own life is directly threatened.
Function in text Serves as the reader's entry point into the Washingtons' world, illustrating the seductive power of extreme wealth and the ease with which moral lines are crossed.
Psychological Mechanisms
  • Cognitive Dissonance: John experiences a growing internal conflict between his inherited morality and the Washingtons' amoral reality, because his desire for wealth and comfort overrides his initial revulsion at their actions.
  • Normalization of Atrocity: The Washingtons' casual discussion of murder and imprisonment becomes normalized for John over time, because his immersion in their isolated world distorts his perception of ethical boundaries and makes the unthinkable seem routine.
  • Escapist Fantasy: John's initial attraction to the Washington estate is rooted in a desire for a life beyond ordinary constraints, because the sheer scale of the diamond offers an ultimate escape from societal rules and consequences.
Think About It To what extent does John's initial innocence make him more, or less, susceptible to the Washingtons' corrupting influence, and what does this suggest about human nature?
Thesis Scaffold John T. Unger's journey from curious visitor to complicit survivor in "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) illustrates how the psychological pull of immense wealth can swiftly erode an individual's moral compass, transforming passive observation into active participation in atrocity.
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World — Historical Pressure

The Jazz Age's Gilded Isolation

Core Claim Fitzgerald uses the Washingtons' secluded mountain estate to dramatize the Jazz Age's anxieties about extreme wealth creating an insulated, amoral elite detached from societal norms.
Historical Coordinates "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" was published in The Smart Set in June 1922, a period of booming post-WWI prosperity and increasing social stratification in America. Fitzgerald himself was deeply embedded in the Jazz Age's high society, observing its excesses firsthand, which informed his critique of its moral landscape.
Historical Analysis
  • Industrial Monopolies: The story's premise of a single family controlling an unimaginable resource reflects contemporary fears about the unchecked power of industrialists and financiers, because it exaggerates the economic dominance of figures like Rockefeller and Carnegie to a fantastical extreme.
  • Isolationist Tendencies: The Washingtons' physical and moral isolation mirrors a broader American sentiment of withdrawing from global affairs post-WWI, because their self-contained empire represents a dangerous extreme of national self-interest and self-sufficiency.
  • Class Stratification: The stark contrast between John's relatively modest background and the Washingtons' unimaginable wealth highlights the widening gap between social classes in the 1920s, because the story pushes this divide to a fantastical, yet thematically resonant, extreme.
Think About It How does the Washingtons' ability to literally buy silence and loyalty reflect the real-world power dynamics of wealth in the early 20th century, particularly concerning labor and political influence?
Thesis Scaffold Fitzgerald's depiction of the Washington family's isolated, self-sustaining empire in "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) functions as a hyperbolic critique of Jazz Age economic anxieties, demonstrating how extreme wealth could foster a dangerous detachment from social accountability.
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Craft — Symbolism

The Diamond: A Luminous Trap

Core Claim The colossal diamond itself evolves from a symbol of boundless opportunity into a literal and figurative prison, revealing the destructive nature of wealth pursued without ethical limits.
Five Stages of the Symbol
  • First Appearance (Chapter 1): John's initial encounter with the diamond mountain is described with awe, as "a diamond as big as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel," because it immediately establishes the impossible scale of wealth and its overwhelming allure.
  • Moment of Charge (Chapter 2): The revelation that the Washingtons kill anyone who discovers their secret imbues the diamond with a sinister power, because its value is directly linked to human sacrifice and moral corruption.
  • Multiple Meanings (Chapter 3): The diamond simultaneously represents ultimate luxury, absolute power, and the family's inescapable burden, because it is both their greatest asset and the source of their paranoia and isolation.
  • Destruction or Loss (Chapter 5): The bombing of the mountain and its subsequent collapse signifies the ultimate failure of the Washingtons' enterprise, because their attempt to control infinite wealth leads to its catastrophic destruction.
  • Final Status (Chapter 5): The remaining diamond, carried by Kismine, becomes a symbol of tainted survival, because it represents the enduring cost of their ambition, even in escape, and the impossibility of truly escaping its corrupting influence.
Comparable Examples
  • The Green Light — The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald): a distant, unattainable symbol of a past ideal, accumulating layers of longing and illusion.
  • The White Whale — Moby Dick (Herman Melville): an object of obsessive pursuit that ultimately consumes its pursuer, embodying both natural power and human folly.
  • The Golden Calf — Exodus (Bible, KJV): a material idol worshipped in place of spiritual values, leading to divine wrath and moral degradation.
Think About It If the diamond were merely a large fortune, rather than a mountain-sized geological anomaly, how would the story's critique of wealth be diminished, and why does its physical scale matter?
Thesis Scaffold Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) traces the symbolic trajectory of its titular gem from an emblem of infinite possibility to a monument of moral decay, demonstrating how the pursuit of absolute material value inevitably leads to self-destruction.
ideas

Ideas — Philosophical Stakes

The Ethics of Absolute Wealth

Core Claim The story argues that wealth, when decoupled from any form of social or ethical accountability, inevitably leads to a solipsistic and destructive moral universe.
Ideas in Tension
  • Individual Liberty vs. Social Responsibility: The Washingtons assert absolute freedom over their domain, because this freedom is predicated on the elimination of any external witness or moral constraint, creating a vacuum of accountability.
  • Material Abundance vs. Spiritual Poverty: Their boundless riches provide every physical comfort but leave them emotionally stunted and morally bankrupt, because their singular focus on acquisition has starved their capacity for genuine human connection and empathy.
  • Progress vs. Stagnation: The Washingtons' technological ingenuity in concealing their mountain is offset by their static, repetitive existence, because their isolation prevents any true growth or engagement with the wider world, trapping them in a gilded cage of their own making.
In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen describes "conspicuous consumption" as a means of displaying status; Fitzgerald extends this, showing how such display, when taken to an extreme, becomes a form of self-imprisonment and moral decay.
Think About It Does the story suggest that immense wealth inherently corrupts, or only that the Washingtons' specific response to it is corrupt, and what textual evidence supports your position?
Thesis Scaffold "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) critiques the philosophical premise of absolute material autonomy, arguing that the Washingtons' attempt to create a self-contained, wealth-driven utopia instead produces a morally void and ultimately unsustainable existence.
essay

Essay — Thesis Crafting

Crafting a Critique of American Opulence

Core Claim Students often mistake Fitzgerald's critique for a simple condemnation of wealth, missing the deeper argument about the systems that enable moral decay in its pursuit.
Three Levels of Thesis
  • Descriptive (weak): Fitzgerald shows that the Washingtons are rich and bad because they kill people for their diamond.
  • Analytical (stronger): By depicting the Washingtons' casual murders in "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922), Fitzgerald critiques the moral compromises inherent in the pursuit of extreme wealth during the Jazz Age.
  • Counterintuitive (strongest): F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) argues that the Jazz Age's promise of limitless material gain, embodied by the Washingtons' diamond mountain, creates a self-perpetuating system of moral isolation that ultimately consumes its beneficiaries, rather than merely condemning individual greed.
  • The fatal mistake: Students often focus on the "badness" of the Washingtons without connecting their actions to the specific historical and economic pressures Fitzgerald is satirizing, reducing the story to a simple morality tale.
Think About It Can someone reasonably disagree with your thesis using textual evidence, or is it merely a summary of plot points that everyone would agree on? If the latter, it's a fact, not an argument.
Model Thesis F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922) employs the fantastical scale of the Washingtons' diamond empire and their subsequent moral atrocities to expose the Jazz Age's dangerous illusion that material abundance can exist without social or ethical accountability.


S.Y.A.
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S.Y.A.

Literature educator and essay writing specialist. Over 20 years of experience creating educational content for students and teachers.