The Great Gatsby is modeled after a Greek Tragedy The Great Gatsby is modeled after a Greek Tragedy. It is a story of lost love and loneliness.

But it takes place during the 1920’s– the RoaringTwenties. Gangsters

Baseball’s Greatest Players A time of: Baseball’s Greatest Players And Scandals

A time of: Prohibition Bootleggers Speakeasies

A time of: Jazz Carnivals Talking movies!

A time of: Flappers Women’s Rights

A time of: New Art Abstract: Surrealism Cubism Expressionism

New Architecture

New Wealth Automobiles Typewriters Cameras Refrigerators

Consumption Advertisements: Coca Cola Campbell’s Soup Quaker Oats

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.”

The 1920s: Nicknames The Roaring ‘20s The Jazz Age The Flapper Era The Aspirin Age The Age of Wonderful Nonsense

The Roaring Twenties While the sense of loss was readily apparent among expatriate American artists who remained in Europe after the war, back home the disillusionment took a less obvious form. 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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Started writing in school - finished his first play in 1911 F. Scott Fitzgerald Born in Minnesota in 1896 Started writing in school - finished his first play in 1911 In 1914 he met and fell in love with a girl who rejected him because he was not rich enough. In 1917 he received a commission as an infantry second lieutenant. In 1918 he reported to Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Zelda Sayre, who later became his wife.

Fitzgerald’s Love for Zelda Seventeen year old Sayre had an overwhelming desire for wealth, fun and leisure and correspondingly delayed their wedding until Fitzgerald heightened his economic accomplishments. After proving himself with the enormous success of his publications, Fitzgerald and Sayre got married in New York.

The Great Gatsby After the birth of their child, the Fitzgeralds moved to Great Neck, Long Island in October 1922, appropriating Great Neck as the setting for The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's neighbours included newly wealthy New Yorkers. Great Neck, on the shores of Long Island Sound, sat across a bay from Manhasset Neck or Cow Neck Peninsula, and was home to many of New York's wealthiest established families. In his novel, Great Neck became the new-money peninsula of "West Egg" and Manhasset Neck the old-money peninsula of "East Egg".

Themes Topics that themes will revolve around: Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties The American Dream Position of women Success & failure Hope & sense of purpose Conflict between illusion & reality Lies and deceit Facades Marriage & love The past versus the present Society & class

Symbols Eyes The East & the West Dust & ash: The valley of ashes Money & wealth (old vs. new) The weather and seasons Significance of colors Green light

Characterization Gatsby Daisy Buchanan Tom Buchanan Jordan Baker Nick Carraway (Narration) Myrtle Wilson George Wilson Meyer Wolfshiem

The Tragic Hero The tragic hero, according to Aristotle, was a man (god, demi-god, hero, high ranking official) who rises to a high position and then falls from that position—usually to utter desolation and /or death. The tragic hero’s tragic flaw (hamartia) and fate. Is passionate about a particular issue; struggles with his own sense of integrity; Is fiercely independent and strongly individual; is a loner (whether imposed by society or self-imposed); Has a troubled or mysterious past; Can be cynical, demanding, and arrogant; Exhibits self-destructive tendencies and behavior. Rejects accepted codes and norms of society; Gatsby’s questo for Daisy, the uncertainly surrounding hou he amassed so vast a fortune so quickly, his aloofness around everyone except the Object of his Quest, the fact that it is not enough that Daisy pve him buit that she must also declare that she never loved tom, and his disdain for the traditional moral and social class standards of his time. Jay sacrifices everything (including his life) to secure his “rightful” place as Daisy’s true lover. When Gatsby fails to achieve his goal—when he fails to attain the status of sole love that he believes is his, his world falls apart.