Cultural Context of The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Introduction Understanding the times helps to understand the novel

World War I:1914 ( )

World War I Disillusioned because of the war, the generation that fought and survived has come to be called “the lost generation.”

The 1920s The 1920s, also known as the Roaring Twenties (for its economic boom), was the post-World War I era. With the ending of the war, the time had come for people to let go of their repressed ways and begin living again. It was a time of great social change and everything was changing: Pleasure dominated and people prospered. It was a time of excess; alcohol, social activity, frivolous sex, and jazz music were in abundance. Prohibition Speakeasies Bootlegging Organized Crime Jazz Age Dancing Flappers Women’s rights The Roaring Twenties Time line

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

1923 # of radios in US homes – 2.5 million 1 st Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Coolidge is reelected 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

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 hour work week (used to be 84 hour) 1 in 6 Americans owns a car 1st 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 Al “Scarface” Capone earnings –$100 million – alcohol sales –$30 million – protection business –$25 million – gambling –$10 million – vice and sundry rackets

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 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

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. Prohibition Speakeasies Bootlegging Organized Crime Jazz Age Dancing Flappers Women’s rights

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.

Gangsters and G-Men! With prohibition came organized crime. Saloons went underground and became ‘speakeasies’. Speakeasies, unlike saloons welcomed women and droves of people came. Gangsters such as Al Capone made their fortunes from organizing the import of alcohol illegally into the U.S. From liquor sales alone, Capone made 60 million dollars in one year.

Excess Alcohol Speakeasies: illegal, hidden places for drinking and dancing. Alcohol was in abundance, but this was a rather ironic situation. In the 1919, the government implemented PROHIBITION. Prohibition meant it was illegal to manufacture, sell or consume alcohol. The basis for prohibition was religious beliefs: associating alcohol with sin. Prohibition became the law of the land.

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 Speak-easies, nightclubs, and taverns that sold liquor were often raided, and gangsters made illegal fortunes as bootleggers, smuggling alcohol into America from abroad.

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 baseball’s World Series.

Sports With the surge of social activity came an interest in sports and athletics,

And an intense love for baseball… Babe Ruth became America’s favorite player.

And an intense sadness associated with it… The Black Sox scandal rocked the nation in 1919, when several white Sox players were banned from playing baseball for throwing the World Series. Pressured into the scandal by other players, Shoeless Joe Jackson was never allowed to play baseball again.

Besides sports, entertainment in the 1920s included silent films Famous stars of the silent screen included funny man Charlie Chaplin, Heart throb Rudolph Valentino, and beauty icon Greta Garbo…

The New Woman The ‘It’ Girl 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.”

20’s Fashion The Flapper! With the end of World War I and the surge in prosperity, fashion was no longer limited to the wealthy. Major changes were seen in women’s fashions, where a boyish figure and short hair was all the rage.

The most famous ‘flapper girl’ »Clara Bow According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the term 'flapper' signifies": a young woman who was "pretty, impudent, superbly assured, as worldly-wise, briefly clad and 'hard-burled‘ as possible.

Men’s Fashions Men wore very distinguished suits for business and an outfit wasn’t fully complete without the right hat! For a relaxed look, men took on a very preppy attire. The following pages will give you a brief look at 20’s attire for men, women, and children.

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.

How does this affect literature?!? It reflects the times! The feelings, thoughts, fears, concerns, beliefs of the people in the 20s. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot – The New Negro by Alain Locke - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill – The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis – The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston -

Difference between Realism and Modernism REALISM –Realistic plots –Believable characters –Written in dialect –Drew on the grim realities of everyday life –Complex ethical choices –Comprehensive detail –Responsible morality; a world truly reported MODERNISM –Deliberate break from the past (in style, form, content, as well as historical location) –alienation from society, loneliness –procrastination, inability to act – Fear of death coupled with a constant awareness of death –inability to express or to feel “real” love –world as a wasteland –inability to see self reflected in the surrounding world, in others

Value Differences in the Modern World Pre-Modern WorldModern World (Early 20 th Century) OrderedChaotic MeaningfulFutile OptimisticPessimistic StableFluctuating FaithLoss of faith Morality/ValuesCollapse of Morality/Values Clear Sense of IdentityConfused Sense of Identity and Place in the World

International literary and cultural movement of the early 20 th century Reflected a sense of cultural crisis which was both exciting and disquieting Opened up new vistas of human possibilities while called into question previous means of grounding and evaluating ideas What is Modernist Literature?

Important Characteristics of Modernist Narratives Alienation—Self is separate and distinct from society which is frequently antagonistic to differences Fragmentation– Disintegration or breakdown of norms of thought, behavior, or social relationship Stream of consciousness Complex allusions Juxtaposition and multiple points of view Use of extended metaphors and extended symbolism

The Modern Age of Literature Fiction of this period moved from plot (outside happenings) to the under-plot (what happens inside the mind) Characters in modern fiction are commonly confronted with a sense of their own insignificance Readers are often left with a sense of uncertainty Modernists believed existence was filled with ambiguity

More Characteristics of Modernism in Literature Inner psychological reality or “interiority” is represented Stream of consciousness—portraying the character’s inner monologue

Summary So, hopefully, now you have a feel for the 1920s and the things consuming society at the time: Money, fashion, alcohol, sex, jazz, and just a pure “living life to the fullest” mentality. As we read The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, try to keep some of these things in mind. They should help you picture the people and understand the events in the story.