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F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Wrote many short stories which seem to celebrate this age of prosperity.
• He also worked in films and this influenced the way he wrote.
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The 1920s Nicknames
• The roaring 20s• The Jazz Age• The Flapper Era• The Aspiring Era• The Age of Wonderful Nonsense• The Golden Twenties
• What do these nicknames suggest about the time period?
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1920s Context
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Post WWI
• People felt entitled to have some fun• Pre-war values and ideals were ignored
and a new and positive outlook was adopted.
• For the first time in a long time people were relatively financially secure and free and more people were able to live in relative luxury.
• Stock market was growing and interest was low.
• Positive and prosperous
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The Jazz Age
• Jazz was experimental and new• It was associated with a carefree
attitude: dancing and self expression• There were also many new fashions • Trendy young women were called
‘flappers’ wearing short skirts and lots of make-up.
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Conspicuous Consumption
• The population of America had doubled in the fifty years previous
• Mass production factories like Ford started up
• Advertising became an industry trying to shape people’s desires
• Fitzgerald worked in advertising• Conspicuous consumption was the
wasteful and extravagant means of showing off wealth-cars, planes, ponies
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Implications
• People had an “I can do anything” attitude, they could forget their past and be whoever they wanted to be
• There was renewed belief in the American Dream which was what brought people to America in the first place
• There was a general feeling that if you worked hard you would succeed
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As a result..
• The 1920s was a very positive period, a time of:
• Optimism• Freedom• Celebration• Positive feeling about the promises &
potential of new life and new values
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BUT!• All of this was fundamentally based on
nothing! The reality people were facing was:
• Death of family & friends in war• Fewer jobs as Wartime production over• Women competing for jobs• Things owned / bought with “virtual
money” (stocks / credit & debt)• Morally bankrupt society; no solid values
(carefree, silly, fun)The American Dream was
misleading!
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The Lost Generation
• America helped the allies to victory in World War One
• But the experience of war bred cynicism• Many young people felt a sense of
purposelessness and dissatisfaction.• This may have been hidden at times by
the pleasure seeking.• The Great Gatsby describes such
characters
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Prohibition
• The sale of alcohol was banned to raise moral standards
• Bootlegging and selling alcohol illegally funded criminals like Al Capone, and Jay Gatsby
• Wolfshiem is the gangster figure in The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby - Geography
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• 1918- The end of the First World War• 1919- Baseball World Series fixed• 1920- Prohibition of alcohol introduced;
women given the right to vote in the USA; census in USA shows more people live in cities than country
• 1925- Publication of The Great Gatsby
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• Traditionally America had been a society living from the land
• It was to be a peace loving nation• People were to be free as individuals• There was the notion of a frontier and
an excitement about adventuring into the new and starting over.
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• There was limitless possibility- Americans could achieve whatever they wished
• Nick admires this in Jay Gatsby• The dream became equated with
getting rich by whatever means• Gatsby succeeds in one way but fails
in the other