Unger, is invited to the home of his mysterious classmate Percy Washington – a descendant of George Washington himself, one of the founding fathers of America. The title story – ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz – is a unique allegory of the failings of blind capitalism. These stories capture – with razor-sharp wit – the essence of the exclusive upper class world of 1920s America. He knows it’s corrupt, conceited and doomed but he also knows it’s fleeting, fascinating and magical. His humorous tone conceals a serious criticism, mocking the conventions of the society he mixed in whilst also defending it from serious attack. In his satirical collection of short stories Fitzgerald portrays the dazzling Jazz Age as a dazzling illusion, riddled with arrogant materialism and all-consuming greed. “There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and the shabby gift of illusion”.
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