The Great Gatsby The Jazz Age The Great

The Great Gatsby

The Jazz Age The Great Gatsby takes place during the summer of 1922. Fitzgerald coined the phrase, "the Jazz Age" that same year to describe the flamboyant —"anything goes"—era that emerged in America after World War I.

F Scott Fitzgerald Descendent from “prominent” American stock Attended Princeton but left without graduating Missed WWI (just) Met Zelda but couldn’t afford to marry her Published This Side of Paradise in 1920 at the age of 24: instant stardom • Married Zelda, his “golden girl” • 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 • • •

Fitzgerald Continued • A daughter, Scotty • Wrote what is considered his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, in Europe in 1924 -25 • Zelda has an affair and Gatsby poorly received • Attempts to earn a clean literary reputation were disrupted by his reputation as a drunk • Zelda becomes mentally unstable • Moved to Hollywood as a screen writer • Dies almost forgotten aged 45 • Zelda perished in a mental hospital fire in 1948 • Only became a “literary great” in the 1960’s

• • • The Great Gatsby Themes American Dream Shallowness and Detachment Geography = Social class Love Loneliness/Isolation

• • The Great Gatsby Symbols The green light Cars Valley of Ashes Eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg

Parallelism • West Egg & Valley of Ashes • Nick & Gatsby • Daisy & Myrtle

Setting: • 1922, outskirts of New York City

The Great Gatsby • Love story • Tragedy • Obsession • Abuse & Violence • “Anything goes” lifestyle, Careless lifestyle • “Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy. ” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Jazz Age/ The Roaring 20’s • The decade witnessed a titanic struggle between an old and a new America. Immigration, race, alcohol, evolution, gender roles, and sexual morality--all became major cultural battlefields during the 1920 s.

• The hedonistic interlude between the Great War (WWI) and the Great Depression (1930’s decade)--a decade of dissipation, jazz bands, fur coats, and bathtub gin.

Social Controversies and Accomplishments: Amendment 18 to the Constitution (1919) Gangsters took control of bootlegging (illegal distribution of liquor) Red Scares during the roaring twenties refer to the fear of Communism in the U. S. 1925, the "Scopes Monkey Trial, " Henry Ford blazed the way with his Model T; he sold more 15 million of them by 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh Spirit of St. Louis in 1927 Youthful "Flapper" women provoked older people with brief skirts, bobbed hair, and cavalier use of makeup and cigarettes.

Artists and the media: film, radio, newspapers, magazines, novels, etc. • Literature: William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carl Sandburg and Ernest Hemingway. • Radio: A uniquely American music form, whose roots lay in African expression, came to be known as jazz. The Jazz Age produced such greats as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Cole Porter • Film: Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino