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The Great Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Roaring Twenties. Age of decadence Flappers Time of prohibition (1920-1933) Herbert Hoover Jazz Age. Images of Flappers. Ford Model T. More Images of Flappers. The Great Gatsby.
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The Roaring Twenties • Age of decadence • Flappers • Time of prohibition (1920-1933) • Herbert Hoover • Jazz Age
The Great Gatsby • Novel invites the reader to enter the Jazz Age: fast cars, wild parties, and shady business dealings • Promotes discussion of values-glittering world of the Roaring Twenties as well as the artificiality and moral bankruptcy of the society Fitzgerald depicts • Gatsby’s world is characterized by excessive opulence
Novel’s Structure • Excellent example of the first person retrospective point of view: Nick • Technical demands on author when uses a central intelligence effective in charting growth in the insight of a narrating character • Uses complex chronology, shifts back and forth between the present and the past • Provides a complete picture of the protagonist only at the end of the work • Typical of modern literature • Uses imagery clusters: can easily trace the patterns of images that Fitzgerald emphasizes
F. Scott Fitzgerald • Short Stories: Major source of income before moving to Hollywood in 1937 • Lived off of income from stories-stories only financed his novels • Wrote with “The Fitzgerald Touch” – wit, sharp observations, dazzling descriptions or the felt emotion • Resented the work that went into his novels • Most of his readers only knew him as a writer of short stories • His concern was the deterioration of the American Dream
The Lost Generation • Group of post WWI writers who became disillusioned with society • Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, TS Eliot • Ex-Patriots • Disliked Victorian notions of morality
"That was always my experience-- a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton ... . However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works." -F. Scott Fitzgerald