The Great GatsbyThe Great GatsbyF. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald

M. BoudreauM. BoudreauEnglish 12English 12

1. Cultural Context1. Cultural ContextThe New American DreamThe New American Dream

America inTransitionAmerica inTransition

"The world must be made safe for democracy" Woodrow Wilson the President had declared, "Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty." --- a spirit of idealism Americans entered the war in 1917.

Key influences and events:

• 1922 foreign policy of Isolationism • 1929 Stock Market Crash • 1932 New Deal era

WWI and the “Lost Generation”WWI and the “Lost Generation”

• World War I ended in 1918.

• The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was over 37 million.

• Disillusioned because of the “total warfare”, the generation that fought and survived has come to be called “the lost generation.”

WWI and the “Lost Generation”WWI and the “Lost Generation”

The “Roaring” TwentiesThe “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 influence of jazzThe influence of jazz

• 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 FemininityThe New Femininity

• 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.”

The New FemininityThe New Femininity

ProhibitionProhibition• 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 Canada and St. Pierre et Miquelon.

2. F. Scott Fitzgerald2. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Biographical notesBiographical notes

Who is F. Scott Fitzgerald?Who is F. Scott Fitzgerald?

• Born in 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota.• He attended Princeton University.• 1917 joined the army.• Met his wife Zelda (his muse).• Published The Great Gatsby in 1925.• Regarded as the speaker of the Jazz

Age• Died in 1940.

3. 3. What is the American Dream?What is the American Dream?

The American DreamThe American Dream

• This concept refers to an attitude of hope and faith that looks forward to the fulfillment of human wishes and desires and is intrinsically linked to the American constitution:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

4. 4. ThemesThemes

The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby

Major ThemesMajor Themes

• The consequences The consequences of the “American of the “American Dream”Dream”

• The impact of The impact of povertypoverty

• DiscriminationDiscrimination• ExploitationExploitation• HypocrisyHypocrisy• CorruptionCorruption

5. 5. Pre-Reading QuestionsPre-Reading Questions

The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby

Pre-reading QuestionsPre-reading Questions

1.Some people think that having 1.Some people think that having money leads to happiness. Do money leads to happiness. Do you agree? Why or why not? you agree? Why or why not? What are the advantages or What are the advantages or disadvantages of being wealthy. disadvantages of being wealthy.

2.What do you think of the 2.What do you think of the "American Dream"? "American Dream"?

3.Have you ever wanted to relive 3.Have you ever wanted to relive or redo a moment from your or redo a moment from your past? Describe the situation. past? Describe the situation. Can a person be trapped by the Can a person be trapped by the past?past?

ReferencesReferenceswww.stpiusxhskc.com/documents/.../gatsby_pres.ppt

bchsapliterature.files.wordpress.com/.../the-great-gats.

www.lbcc.edu/English/.../Fitzgerald.pptx

www.mtsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib5/NJ01000127/.../Fitz.ppt