The Great Gatsby



The Great Gatsby

Introductory Notes

Historical Context: The Roaring 20s

• Post WWI

• America seemed to throw itself headlong into a decade of madcap behavior and materialism

• The Jazz Age

o Music promoted by phonograph and radio

o Swept up New Orleans to capture the national imagination

o Broke the rules of music (wild)

▪ Mirrored the times

• Prohibition 1920 - 1933

o Eighteenth Amendment (banned sale of alcohol)

o Speakeasies, nightclubs, and taverns sold it

o Organized crime

• Gambling

o “Black Sox” Scandal of 1919

• The New Woman

o Demanded the right to vote and work outside of home

o Flapper: unconventional woman (behavior, short hair, short skirts)

• The Economy

o Prosperity

o Reckless spending and consumption

o Automobile as a status symbol

o Advertising major industry

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

• St. Paul, Minnesota 1896

• Wrote for Roman Catholic NP

• Family inherited money from GF

• Went to Princeton in 1913 (didn’t graduated)

o Continued to write for various organizations

o Entered WWI in 1917

• Zelda (his wife)

o Broke engagement

o Had daughter, Scottie

o 1924 – moved to Paris

o Zelda had affair

o Battled with depression and alcoholism

• Fitz. died 1940

Modernism: 1900-1946 (early 20th Century Modern World)

• Chaotic

• Futile

• Pessimistic

• Fluctuating

• Loss of faith

• Collapse of morality

• Confused identify

• Forces of Modernism

o No center, no values

o Relativistic, changing, strange universe

• Expatriate Writers: The Lost Generation

o Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Miller, etc.

• Characteristics of Modernism in Literature

o Perspectivism

▪ Meaning = individual’s perspective

▪ Personalized

o Perception of Language

▪ Not transparent

▪ the way an individual constructs reality

▪ Language = multiple layers of connotative forces

o Emphasis: Experimental; Reject traditional

▪ POV

▪ Artist is artifact, not reality

▪ Org. non -sequentially

▪ Experience is layered, allusive – fragmentation and juxtaposition

• Modernism Themes

o Collectivism vs. individualism

o Anxiety regarding past

o Historical discontinuity

o Disillusionment

o Alienation, disconnection

o Decadence and decay

o Loss and despair

o Breakdown of social norms

o Sense of place, local color

The Great Gatsby (1925)

• a “fish out of water” story

• Autobiographical Elements

o Fitzgerald spoke of writing as a “sheer paring away of oneself.”

• Setting

o Spring – fall of 1922

o LI Sound

▪ East Egg (old money)

▪ West Egg (new money)

▪ NYC and Valley of Ashes

• Main Characters

o Nick Carraway

o Jay Gatsby

o Daisy

o Tom

o Myrtle

Literary Devices

• Epigraph

• Symbolism

• Figurative Language

• Symbolic Landscape

• Symbolic Appellation

• Metonymy

• Synecdoche

• Motif

• Verisimilitude

• Zeitgeist

• Epithet

Important Elements

• Colors

• Eyes

• Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s Billboard

• The Valley of the Ashes

• Owl Eyes

• East and West

• Seasons

• Biblical Parallels

• The Green Light

• Time and Clocks

• Cars and Drivers

• Circus/Amusement Park References

• Clothing

• Names

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download