f scott fitzgerald the great gatsby and the roaring twenties
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F Scott FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsbyand The Roaring Twenties
Author Background Francis Scott Fitzgerald
born September 24, 1896Member of the Princeton
Class of 1917 Joined the Army-stationed in
Montgomery Alabama where he met Zelda Sayre
Refused to marry him until he could publish This Side of Paradise
Published 3/26/1920, week later the couple married
Part of the literary party scene with Ernest Hemmingway playwright Gertrude Stein
Author Background Cont.
Known as an alcoholic , led to slow writing speed
Critics called him an “irresponsible writer.”
Main themes focused on aspirations and the American Dream and domesticity
Great Gatsby put him on the literary map
Wrote it in France- Zelda had affair
1930-1931-Zelda began dancing led to her mental breakdowns
Died 12-21-1940-believing himself a failure
Zelda died 1948 in an asylum fire
Author Background Cont.
Descendent from “prominent” American stock
Attended Princeton but left without graduating
Missed WWI (just) Wrote “money-making”
popular fiction for most of his life, mainly for the New York Post: $4000 a story (which equates to about $50,000 today)
He and Zelda were associated with high living of the Jazz Age
A daughter, Scotty
1920-1929: Changing Times
Literature Music
Media / Technology Women’s Rights
Prohibition Lifestyles
An economy stimulated by WW1 fueled a massive economic boom.
The 1920’s were a time of unprecedented social and technological change in so many areas:
General Business Conditions Stable prices High employment
The wealth of the 1920s however, belies careless disregard for responsible spending (and the importance of hard work and perseverance) and for moral principles.
“The Party has to End”: lavish spending and disregard for family and more traditional values (such as fidelity to one’s spouse) contributed to economic collapse and a decline in national morale.
The decade of the twenties is often referred to as the “ Jazz Age’. However, the term has much as much to do with the jazzy atmosphere of the time as with the music!
The Roaring Twenties
Jazzy Sounds Prohibition brought many
jazz musicians north from New Orleans to Chicago and New York
Jazz became the soundtrack of rebellion for a younger generation
Jazzy Duds
Flappers were typical young girls of the twenties, usually with bobbed hair, short skirts, rolled stockings, and powdered knees!
They danced the night away doing the Charleston and the Black Bottom.
Jazzy Talk -Twenties Slang All Wet - wrong Bee’s Knees - a superb person Big Cheese -an important
person Bump Off - to murder Dumb Dora - a stupid girl Flat Tire - a dull, boring
person Gam - a girls leg Hooch - bootleg liquor Hoofer - chorus girl Torpedo - a hired gunman
Gee I wish a torpedo would bump off this flat tire
Dumb Dora
Music in Gatsby http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wbNZFS3MDA
Gatsby’s music during the parties is described as the “yellow cocktail music”
This was Jazz and Ragtime Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington
King Oliver
Lifestyles and fashions of the 1920s
No more Victorian Values Flappers Collegiate Students Independent women Gaiety Increasing wealth Social mobility Alcohol consumption
Women’s Rights Movement Suffrage - the right
to vote Nineteenth
Amendment (1920) Changing attitudes
and fashions help bring about the new woman e.g. Jordan Baker
ProhibitionThe Volstead
Act18th
Amendment (1919)
Bootleggers Sold, bought,
consumed alcohol.
Gangsters Al Capone and a ‘gonnection’
Prohibition Creates Bootlegging IndustryCrime increased
because people rebelled
against laws prohibiting alcohol.
● Numerous “speak- easies”—
nightclubs where alcoholic
drinks were sold—
cropped up.
Defiance of the Prohibition Act, women gaining the right to vote, relaxing of social mores, the rise in organized crime, the influence of Hollywood, advertising, and the fashion industries, all contributed to the advent of the Roaring 20s—a time of reckless spending, get-rich-quick schemes and an abandonment of the noble ideals of hard and honest work.
Media and Technology Automobilisation
the car is available to many from courting to dating
Mass Media Magazines and literacy
Reader’s Digest Time
Radios and advertising New forms of narrative
Movie - “talkies” e.g. The Jazz Singer
Popular Sports
Literature of the 1920s Authors wrote about
their personal lives as something “knowable”.
Gatsby contains a great deal of autobiographical material and references to the 1920’s.
Fitzgerald was also influenced by Modernist theories about art.
Modernism in the Twenties
The Modernist Era Rejection of Romanticism and the
advent of moral uncertainty the catastrophe of World War I (the wasteland and valley of ashes)
Embracing the new i.e. mechanization and industrialization (Gatsby’s car) new (replaceable) fashions mass entertainment
Using new means of Representation the development of cinema, the mass media and advertising
Modernist Era Modernism was an artistic trend that Modernism was an artistic trend that
sought to find new ways to communicatesought to find new ways to communicate
Writers stripped away descriptions of Writers stripped away descriptions of characters and setting and avoided direct characters and setting and avoided direct statements of themes and resolutionsstatements of themes and resolutions
This “fragmented” style of writing This “fragmented” style of writing enabled the reader to choose meaning for enabled the reader to choose meaning for himself, believing life had no meaning.himself, believing life had no meaning.
Modernist Era This period has been referred to as
“The Lost Generation”.
Hemingway, in his novel “The Sun Also Rises” depicts a group of expatriate Americans, wandering aimlessly through Europe, sensing that they are powerless and that life is pointless in the aftermath of the Great War.
“The Great Gatsby” can be seen to encapsulate this perception of life without purpose, of restlessness, dissatisfaction and drifting. It was published in the middle of the decade and reveals a mindless quest for pleasure and a loss of direction in life.
East Egg (where the old money families live) and West Egg, Long Island (where the nouveau riche [newly rich] reside.
The Valley of Ashes (Industrial section): the depression and grime symbolize
the wealthy’s exploitation of the working class. Myrtle Wilson feels trapped in the “ash heap.”
Modernist Era
The nouveau riche (new rich) emerged: a generation of wealthy individuals who did not inherit their social and financial status, but who became suddenly well-off due to lucrative business ventures (some were illegal). “The American Dream” was attainable without “hard work” or “perseverance.”
Modernist Era
Modernist Literature A focus on alienated individuals, rather
than heroes who stand for ideals of society
Frequent themes of impermanence and change
The use of understandment and irony to reveal important emotions and ideas
The use of symbols and images that suggest meanings, rather than statements that explain meanings.
What is The Great Gatsby about? A novel about the aspirations of one man,
and his quest to obtain the American Dream The novel is an exploration of our national
myth The novel follows Jay Gatsby as he pursues
his dream Focus on parties, carelessness, the
American Romance with cars, $ mobility The novel also chronicles the process of
change that the narrator Nick Carraway goes through
It captures the beauty and tragedy of the 1920’s, and age of excess
Themes/Main Ideas presented The relative disillusion of The American Dream Position of women have in a rapidly changing society Prohibition & organized crime: The effect/affect on
society Success & failure/Hope & sense of purpose Conflict between Illusion & reality Wealth/materialism Time/desire to repeat the past Fidelity and friendship Society/the spirit as wasteland
Symbolism and Motifs Eyes The East & the West Dust & ash Money & wealth (old vs new) Significance of colours Domesticity is impossible to escape even with
independence The American Dream can be found, but at a
price The unfulfilled dream of the past can ruin the
present but may provide insight towards the future
Glamour in the Prohibition Era PTSD and the Aftermath of war Omnipresence of Society
Is The Great Gatsby a period piece, or does the novel step outside its time and address universal themes?