F. Scott Fitzgerald

1
F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby

2
About the Author

• Born-September 24, 1896
• Died-December 21, 1940
• Married Zelda Sayre
• Famous works include The Great Gatsby
• The Beautiful and the Damned
• Tender is the Night

3
F. Scott Fitzgeralds Impact on Society

• Fitzgerald named the 1920s The Jazz Age
• Wrote screenplays for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Created the The Great Gatsby which is said to be
  the most accurate description of the 1920s

4
Historical Information

• Understanding the times helps to understand the
  novel

5
World War I

• World War I ended in 1918.
• Disillusioned because of the war, the generation
  that fought and survived has come to be called
  the lost generation.

6
The Roaring Twenties

• America seemed to throw itself headlong into a
  decade of madcap behavior and materialism, a
  decade that has come to be called the Roaring
  Twenties.

7
The Jazz Age

• The era is also known as the Jazz Age, when the
  music called jazz, promoted by such recent
  inventions as the phonograph and the radio, swept
  up from New Orleans to capture the national
  imagination.
• Improvised and wild, jazz broke the rules of
  music, just as the Jazz Age thumbed its nose at
  the rules of the past.

8
The New Woman

• Among the rules broken were the age-old
  conventions guiding the behavior of women. The
  new woman demanded the right to vote and to work
  outside the home.
• Symbolically, she cut her hair into a boyish
  bob and bared her calves in the short skirts of
  the fashionable twenties flapper.

9
The Flappers

• Flappers were women who rebelled against the
  fashion and social norms of the early 1900s.
• They married at a later age and drank and smoked
  inpublic
• Flappers were known for their carefree lifestyles.

10
Flapper Fashion

• Flappers dressed in shapeless dresses that came
  to the knee.
• Dresses were made to look boy-like
• Gender bending was common. Women would try to
  make themselves look more man-like.

11
Prohibition

• Another rule often broken was the Eighteenth
  Amendment to the Constitution, or Prohibition,
  which banned the public sale of alcoholic
  beverages from 1919 until its appeal in 1933.
• Speak-easies, nightclubs, and taverns that sold
  liquor were often raided, and gangsters made
  illegal fortunes as bootleggers, smuggling
  alcohol into America from abroad.

12
Gambling

• Another gangland activity was illegal gambling.
• Perhaps the worst scandal involving gambling was
  the so-called Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which
  eight members of the Chicago White Sox were
  indicted for accepting bribes to throw baseballs
  World Series.

13
The Automobile

• The Jazz Age was also an era of reckless spending
  and consumption, and the most conspicuous status
  symbol of the time was a flashy new automobile.
• Advertising was becoming the major industry that
  it is today, and soon advertisers took advantage
  of new roadways by setting up huge billboards at
  their sides.
• Both the automobile and a bizarre billboard play
  important roles in The Great Gatsby.

14
The Jazz Age Summary

• Prohibition was in effect
• Dances such as the Charleston were popular
• Popular sayings included 23 Skidoo, Bees Knees
• Economy was in a Boom

15
Characters of The Great Gatsby

• Jay Gatsby- The self-made wealthy man who lives
  next door to Nick Carraway and loves Daisy
  Buchanan

16
Characters of The Great Gatsby

• Nick Carraway- the narrator, Daisys cousin,
  Gatsbys neighbor

17
Characters in The Great Gatsby

• Daisy Buchanan- married to Tom, Gatsbys love
  interest before the war, socialite

18
Characters in The Great Gatsby

• Tom Buchanan- Daisys husband, has an affair with
  Myrtle
• Myrtle Wilson- Toms woman in the city, married
  to George
• George Wilson- owns the gas station
• Jordan Baker- Daisys friend, professional golfer

19
Settings in The Great Gatsby

• West Egg- where Nick and Gatsby live, represents
  new money
• East Egg- where Daisy lives, the more fashionable
  area, represents old money

20
Old Money Vs. New Money

• New Money
• Someone who has achieved the American Dream
• Not as respected in the 1920s

• Old Money
• Money from family wealth
• Born rich
• Not earned through work done by yourself
• Respected above all in the 1920s

21
The American Dream

• Gatsby is the ideal image of one who has achieved
  the American Dream.

22
Settings in The Great Gatsby

• The City- New York City, where the characters
  escape to for work and play
• The Valley of Ashes- between the City and West
  Egg, where Wilsons
• gas station is located.

23
Symbols in The Great Gatsby

• Green Light- at the end of Daisys dock and
  visible from Gatsbys mansion. Represents
  Gatsby's hopes and dreams about Daisy.

24
Symbols in The Great Gatsby

• The Valley of Ashes- the area between West Egg
  and New York City. It is a desolate area filled
  with industrial waste. It represents the social
  and moral decay of society during the 1920s. It
  also shows the negative effects of greed.

25
Symbols in The Great Gatsby

• The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Ekleburg- A decaying
  billboard in the Valley of Ashes with eyes
  advertising an optometrist. There are multiple
  proposed meanings, including the representation
  of Gods moral judgment on society.

26
Important Quotes

• I hope shell be a fool- thats the best thing a
  girl can be in this world, a beautiful little
  fool.
• Daisys description of her daughter
• So we beat on, boats against the current, borne
  back ceaselessly into the past. the last line
  of the novel

27
Important Quotes

• "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they
  smashed up things and creatures and then
  retreated back into their money or their vast
  carelessness or whatever it was that kept them
  together, and let other people clean up the mess
  they had made." Nicks description of Tom and
  Daisy