The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemnAt the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.”

Laurence Binyon

Early 1900’s

The average life expectancy was  47 years

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles Of paved roads

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower

Early 1900’s

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year

More than 95 percent of all births took place at home

Ninety percent of all doctors had no college education

Sugar cost four cents a pound

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound

Most women only washed their hair  once a month, and used Borax or eggs for shampoo

Five leading causes of death were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis3. Diarrhea4. Heart disease 5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores - pharmacists said that heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald returned to his parents' house at 599 Summit Avenue, on Cathedral Hill, in St. Paul to revise The Romantic Egoist. Recast as This Side of Paradise, about the post-WWI flapper generation, it was accepted by Scribner's in the fall of 1919, and Zelda and Scott resumed their engagement. The novel was published on March 26, 1920, and became one of the most popular books of the year. Scott and Zelda were married in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. Their daughter and only child, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, was born on October 26, 1921.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love. As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development. The Great Gatsby, considered Scott's masterpiece, was published in 1925. Fitzgerald made several excursions to Europe, notably Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway looked up to Fitzgerald as an experienced professional writer. Hemingway greatly admired The Great Gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway was tumultuous, as many of Fitzgerald’s relationships would prove to be. Hemingway did not get on well with Zelda, either. He claimed that she “encouraged her husband to drink so as to distract Scott from his ‘real’ work on his novel," the other work being the short stories he sold to magazines. This “whoring”, as Fitzgerald, and subsequently Hemingway, called these sales, was a sore point in the authors’ friendship. Fitzgerald claimed that he would first write his stories in an authentic manner but then put in “twists that made them into saleable magazine stories.”

Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920’s America, an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age.” Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude police notice, and “speakeasies”—secret clubs that sold liquor—thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were gone, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.

The Great Gatsby

First published on April 10, 1925Is a critique of the American DreamChronicles the chaos of World War I American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity

during the "roaring" 1920’s as the economy soaredAlthough not popular at first printing, it is today widely

regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel and a literary classic

Has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world,

Is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century

• INFORMATION FROM SPARKNOTES

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby has been filmed four times:

1.The Great Gatsby, in 1926 by Herbert Brenon – a silent movie of a stage adaptation, starring Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson, and William Powell. It is a famous example of a lost film. Reviews suggest that it may have been the most faithful adaptation of the novel, but a trailer of the film at National Archives is all that is known to exist

2.The Great Gatsby, in 1949 by Elliott Nugent – starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, and Shelley Winters; for copyright reasons, this film is not readily available

3.The Great Gatsby, in 1974, by Jack Clayton – the most famous screen version, starring Robert Redford in the title role with Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway, with a script by Francis Ford Coppola

4.The Great Gatsby, in 2000 by Robert Markowitz – a made-for-TV movie starring Toby Stephens, Paul Rudd and Mira Sorvino.

The Great Gatsby - Setting

Takes place during a time right after World War I and before The Great Depression

Takes place during a time of unprecedented prosperity

Set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922

Flows between East Egg and West Egg – different sides of the harbor

Neighborhood of wealth, lavish parties, fancy cars, and mansions

The Great Gatsby - Setting

Oheka Castle on the Gold Coast of Long Island was a partial inspiration for Gatsby's estate.

The Great Gatsby - Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920’s The hollowness of the upper class The Prohibition Women in the 20’s East verses West Discrimination

The Great Gatsby - Symbolism

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Green Light Valley of the Ashes The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Automobiles The Jazz Age The East The White Race

The Great Gatsby - Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Geography Weather

The Great Gatsby - Characters

Nick Carroway – narrator of the novelJay Gatsby – protagonist and title characterDaisy Buchanan – Nick’s cousinTom Buchanan – wealthy villainJordan Baker – Daisy’s cousin and pro golferGeorge and Myrtle Wilson – gas station owners

1922

Pres. Warren G Harding introduced the first radio to the White House

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC was dedicated Movie hits included “Beyond the Rocks” and “Cops” The New York Giants won the World Series The NFL was organized and played its first season

1922 – The Automobile

The first cars did not have steering wheels. Drivers steered with a lever.

The New York City Police Department used bicycles to pursue speeding motorists in 1898.

The first speeding ticket was issued in 1902.In 1916, 55 percent of the cars in the world were

Model T Fords, a record that has never been beaten.The first gas gauge appeared in cars in 1922.In 1923, 173 new inventions by women for cars had

been reported. Among these inventions were a carburetor and an electric engine starter.

The Automobile

Tin Lizzie

Gatsby’s Car – The Pierce Arrow

Roaring Twenties

Welcome to 1922, East Egg, and The Great Gatsby