The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald • Born: Sept 24, 1896 • Named after ancestor (Francis Scott Key) • 1913 - enrolled in Princeton University (didn’t graduate) and later enlisted in army • Fell in love with Zelda Sayre • She agreed to marry him once he was a success • 1920 – his book This Side of Paradise is published

4. The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (cont.) • The book is successful; Zelda agrees to marry him, settled in NYC • Daughter – Frances “Scottie” • 1925 – The Great Gatsby • Parties (Zelda the quintessential flapper) and alcoholism (when not writing, Fitz. Would binge drink) • Died: 1940 (heart attack)

5. The Novel • Considered Titles: • Gold-hatted Gatsby • Trimalchio • Trimalchio in West Egg • Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires • On the Road to West Egg • The High-bouncing Lover • Gatsby • The Great Gatsby • Under the Red White and Blue

6. The Great Gatsby • Time period – early 1920’s • Settings – East Egg, West Egg, NYC • Main Characters from three social classes: • Nick Carraway (narrator) (upper-middle) • Tom Buchanan (wealthy) • Daisy Fay Buchanan (wealthy) • Jordan Baker (wealthy) • Jay Gatsby (wealthy, but rags to riches) • George Wilson (working) • Myrtle Wilson (working)

7. Fitzgerald’s Delineating of Character • naming; 2) description of physical appearance, including clothing; 3) association with objects, surroundings, possessions, or images 4) direct discussion and analysis of the character by the narrator; 5) actions and behavior, whether described or represented; 6) talk by the character, including a) talk as performance (lying, boasting, betraying, flattering) b) talk as self-defining via vocabulary, dialect, rhetoric c) self-analysis by the character (“I am…”) whether accurate or not. 7) talk about the character by others, accurate or not. Such talk both characterizes the talker and the character talked about.

8. The Very Rich… “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.” -Fitzgerald

9. Settings

10. The Valley of Ashes

11. East Egg

12. New York City

13. Critical Response to the Novel… “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud” —New York World headline A little slack, a little soft, more than a little artificial. The Great Gatsby falls into the class of negligible novels. -- The Springfield Republican “With sensitive insight and keen psychological observation, Fitzgerald discloses in these people a meanness of spirit, carelessness and absence of loyalties…A curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today... He writes well—he always has—for he writes naturally, and his sense of form is becoming perfected.” --The New York Times Book Review

14. Prohibition • The Eighteenth Amendment (1919) to the Constitution forbade the manufacture, sale, import, or export of intoxicating liquors. • The Twenty-first Amendment (1933) repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.

15. The Roaring Twenties • Prohibition • Speakeasies • Bootlegging • Organized Crime • Jazz Age • Dancing • Flappers • Women’s rights

16. 1920’s Cultural Points • 1920: 19th amendment granted women right to vote • 1921: knee-length skirts became fashionable, 1st Miss America pageant • 1922: 5,000 speakeasies in NYC • 1923: 15 million cars registered in US • 1925: Scopes Trial (evolution debate) • 1926: 40 hour work week established, 1 in 6 Americans owns a car • 1927: 30,000 speakeasies in NYC, 41 die in NYC New Year’s Eve due to bad booze • 1929: Stock Market Crash