The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Lost Generation  The years immediately after World War I brought a highly vocal rebellion against established social, sexual, and aesthetic conventions and a vigorous attempt to establish new values. Young artists flocked to Greenwich Village, Chicago, and San Francisco, determined to protest and intent on making a new art. Others went to Europe, living mostly in Paris as expatriates. They willingly accepted the name given them by Gertrude Stein: the lost generation. Out of their disillusion and rejection, the writers built a new literature, impressive in the glittering 1920s and the years that followed.  Romantic clichés were abandoned for extreme realism or for complex symbolism and created myth. Language grew so frank that there were bitter quarrels over censorship, as in the troubles about James Branch Cabell's Jurgen (1919) and—much more notably— Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1931). The influences of new psychology and of Marxian social theory were also very strong. Out of this highly active boiling of new ideas and new forms came writers of recognizable stature in the world, among them Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, and E. E. Cummings.

The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald  Born: Sept 24, 1896  Named after ancestor (Francis Scott Key)  enrolled in Princeton University (didn’t graduate)  1917 – 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

The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (cont.)  The book is successful; Zelda agrees to marry him  Daughter – Frances  1925 – The Great Gatsby  Parties and alcoholism  Zelda’s breakdown and death  Died: 1940 (heart attack)

The Great Gatsby Information  Time period – 1920’s  Setting – East Egg, West Egg, NYC  List of Main Characters Nick Carraway (narrator) Tom Buchanan Daisy Fay Buchanan Jordan Baker Jay Gatsby George Wilson Myrtle Wilson

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  The Twenty-first Amendment (1933) repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. ALCOHOL

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

1920  More people in the city than in the country  # of radios in homes – 2,000  First radio broadcast aired  Harlem Renaissance begins  League of Nations established  19 th Amendment – women granted the right to vote in the US

1921  Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as President of the United States of America  Knee length skirts become fashionable  The first Miss America pageant  First drive-in food place

1922  Flapper dress makes its debut  Speakeasies in NYC = 5,000  First radio commercial broadcast

1923  Hollywood sign goes up  Americans see on avg. 1 movie/week  President Harding dies  Vice President Coolidge becomes President  15 million cars registered in the US  Charleston dance becomes popular

1924  # of radios in US homes – 2.5 million  1 st Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade  Coolidge is reelected

1925  Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby  Hitler publishes Mein Kampf  The first woman Governor of a U.S. state (Wyoming) is elected.  The Scopes Trial Evolution in schools debate First trial broadcast over the radio  Frisbie invented

1926  40 hour work week (used to be 84 hour)  1 in 6 Americans owns a car  1 st supermarket  Mae West – arrested for moving navel during play  US woman swims the English Channel  Deaths due to bad booze in NYC = 750

1927  Charles Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic Ocean  First talking movie (The Jazz Singer)  Telephone service is opened between New York City and London (AT&T)  Speakeasies in NYC = 30,000  Deaths due to bad booze in 1 hospital in NYC on New Year’s Eve = 41

1927 (continued)  Al “Scarface” Capone earnings $100 million – alcohol sales $30 million – protection business $25 million – gambling $10 million – vice and sundry rackets

1928  U.S. signs Briand-Kellogg Pact - outlawing war  Amelia Earhart flies across the Atlantic  Women compete for the first time in Olympic field events  Penicillin discovered  1 st televisions are sold - $75  Mickey Mouse in first cartoon  Divorce rate – 1 in 6 marriages

1929  Empire State Building construction begins  Speakeasies in NYC = 32,000 – 100,000  Speakeasies in Chicago = 10,000  Valentine’s Day Massacre “Bugs” Moran gang killed by Al Capone’s men  Car radio invented  Stock Market crash October 29 “Black Tuesday” $9 billion lost on that one day

1920’s compared to today

Bibliography        04/ _b_main.asp 04/ _b_main.asp    mlb/yankees/frommer42.htm mlb/yankees/frommer42.htm  1s23bonds.html 1s23bonds.html

Assignment  What would the US be without the following 1920’s events/inventions?  Pick one from the following list and write 50 words in your journal explaining your opinion.  Radio  Car radio  Television  Miss America Pageant  Prohibition  Fast food places  40 hour work week  Skyscrapers  Penicillin