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.

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?

1920s Context

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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

The Great Gatsby - Geography

• 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

• 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.

• 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