One of the themes often present in Fitzgerald's work is a sense of living in illusion or becoming disillusioned. Pleasure was the goal of the Jazz Age, pursuing fame, wealth, and love through selfish means. F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of characters who are often under an illusion about the reality of what they are pursuing and the effects of their subsequent disillusionment.
Anthony Patch in The Beautiful and Damned desires to live "the good life". Anthony and his wife live lavishly, with the expectation of an inheritance from his grandfather. In the course of the novel, Anthony is disinherited, and they realize their potential to make something of themselves is dwindling. In Tender is the Night, Dick Diver seeks happiness in spite of his troubled marriage. He pursues an affair, but even the love of another women cannot bring him happiness, and Dick descends into alcoholism. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby wants to turn back time, to be the only man Daisy loves. "'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'" But Gatsby finds what he never saw before; that there was no reality behind his vision. When confronted with reality, what Fitzgerald's characters believe about themselves becomes an illusion.
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