F. Scott Fitzgerald andThe Great Gatsby

Childhood

Born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in 1896, to an upper-middle class family in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Spent his childhood in St. Paul and New York City.

Showed a love of theater and writing at an early age.

Wrote his first novel at age 13. It was a detective story.

Early Adulthood

Attended Princeton University where he wrote scripts for university drama department.

Left Princeton to serve in the U.S. Army, where he would remain for two years.

After he was discharged, he moved to New York City where he worked in advertising and began his writing career.

Francis and Zelda

Married Zelda Sayre in 1920. Zelda was a southern belle from Montgomery, Alabama.

She was a talented artist, writer, and ballerina. Ballet became her obsession later in her life.

On their honeymoon, the couple was asked to leave the Biltmore Hotel because of their notoriously wild, outrageous parties.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda embraced the flapper lifestyle by dressing provocatively, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol.

Fitzgerald would draw from Zelda’s personal diary while creating his heroines.

Due to her reputation as a flirtatious, wild young woman, Zelda is considered by many to be the original “flapper girl.”

Rich and Famous

The couple settled in Connecticut, where they would become celebrities due to their outrageous conduct and fabulous parties.

Turbulent years

Soon after their marriage, Francis became jealous, suspicious, and even abusive. He also turned to alcoholism.

Meanwhile, Zelda became obsessed with her ballet to the point of emotional and physical disintegration.

Fitzgerald’s troubled marriage with Zelda inspired many of his story’s plots.

The Lost Generation

During the mid 1920’s in Paris, Fitzgerald becomes part of the group of expatriate American writers which included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound.

The Great Gatsby

Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest novel. It is known for it’s portrayal of the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties.

It tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a young man who falls in love with a woman from the social elite and attempts to climb the social ladder in order to win her love.

The novel explores such ideas as materialism, hope, social class, and the corruption of the American Dream.

Fitzgerald on “The Jazz Age”

“A generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.”

Historical and Social Context

Gatsby was both written in and set during a unique period in US History.

After moving from isolationism to international involvement in WWI, America experienced a time of great prosperity, often referred to as the "Roaring Twenties.”

The Eighteenth Amendment, passed in 1919, prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Prohibition made millionaires out of bootleggers and owners of underground saloons, called "speakeasies.” Organized crime became a major problem during this time.

Women in the 1920s

The 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, granting women’s suffrage.

Once granted the right to vote, women began to be treated more like equals. Many women even began dressing (shorter skirts, loose clothes, short hair) and acting like men (smoking, working outside the home).

After WWI, many women stayed in the work force, keeping their wartime jobs.

The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald glamorizes the “nouveau riche” (new money) of this period. He includes lots of descriptions of their beautiful clothing, lavish parties, and extravagant homes with great attention to detail and wonderful use of color.

While the lavish lifestyle is glamorized in the novel, it is also questioned and criticized for it’s hollowness and excessiveness.

Setting and Narration

The story takes place in the fictional East and West Egg in New York’s Long Island in 1922.

Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner who has recently moved to the East Coast to learn the bond business, is the narrator. Jay Gatsby is Nick’s neighbor. Nick, much like F. Scott Fitzgerald, is both intrigued and appalled by the lavish lifestyles of the Long Islanders.

West Egg and East Egg

Symbols to look for

East Egg West Egg Various colors

(yellow, red, blue, green, white) Daisy, Tom, Jordan, Gatsby Weather The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg The Green Light The Valley of Ashes

Themes

HappinessHope

The American DreamNew Rich versus Old Rich

The shallowness of the upper classesThe ostentatious conduct of the new

rich