F. Scott Fitzgerald- (Page 495) Was part of both the jazz age and the lost generation. Wrote books encouraging the flapper culture, and books scorning wealthy people being self-centered. He wrote This Side of Paradise where he romanticized interpretation of the affluent postwar young.…
When reading some of the vast list of stories and poems dubbed American literature, it seems as though every genre and style of writing is represented, from science fiction to romance, adventure to tragedy. What sets these books apart from those written in other countries? When considering the degree of “Americanness” of a piece of writing is, one must consider how well it describes the intended era and how well it portrays American values such as freedom and equality.…
The Roaring Twenties was the time period right after World War II. During this time period new technology was becoming produced such as the vacuum cleaner, motion pictures and the refrigerator. The American Dream, in the 20s’, was a belief of the Americans that everyone deserves a chance to be successful and more equality. Women started to protest more and take action on their inequality because of this women were becoming more involved in the labor force, politics and they were now able to vote. Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a writer during The Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic so when prohibition was passed in the US, him and his wife moved to Europe, where he wrote “The Great Gatsby”. Fitzgerald wrote about characters that he could live through. Many of his works had to deal with men and women relationships. Francis Scott Fitzgerald's writing was a reflection of what was happening in that time period, “The Roaring Twenties”, because he was able to capture the mood of the 20s’ and it also reflected greatly on the the American dream.…
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work were in a knot from the start; his profession spanned one of the most tumultuous eras of the century, and from the very start he was the creator and the victim of the new culture of celebrity which accompanied the rise of modern technology. Budd Schulberg masterfully created a character that closely and in many ways represents Fitzgerald in his later years; Manley Halliday is that character. “His mind’s eye, incurably bifocal, could never stop searching for the fairy-tale maiden who made his young manhood a time of bewitchment, when springtime was the only season and the days revolved on a lovers’ spectrum of sunlight, twilight, candlelight and dawn.”[Ch.10]. Fitzgerald had an interesting relationship with his beautiful wife Zelda Fitzgerald, in the novel Halliday’s was a flapper named Jere. Much of the novel’s center core is an up and close view covering the couple’s interactions, behavior, parties, and a lot of screw ups that do not shy away from Fitzgerads’ very own. Not only is there a connection between Halliday’s Jere but The Disenchanted introduced the subject of glamorized failure, in the scene when Manley Halliday is dying and thinks, “Take it from me, baby, in America nothing fails like success” [Ch. Slow Dissolve] he indeed, is the American failure.…
What do you think of the view that obsession with money and the new consumer culture of the 1920s dominates human thinking and behavior in ‘The Great Gatsby’?…
Upon rereading Fitzgerald’s novel I was intrigued by the themes and motifs that kept cropping up throughout the story—the decline of the American dream and the spirit of the 1920’s, the role of symbols in the human conception of meaning, and the role of the past in dreams of the future. Strangely, many of these themes related to me and made me analyze and view myself, and the world, in ways I never imagined.…
Fitzgerald's involvement with the pop culture during the turn of the twentieth century and of his understanding of American and literary history immensely aware of what society had become by the 1920s. He believed that the American Dream "the dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement," (Adams) was poisoned by the delusional and heedless pursuit of wealth and pleasure; condemning it even as he took part in it. Fitzgerald's vision of America, that once inspired wonder and enchantment, juxtaposed with the lives and the story of The Great Gatsby, illustrates the depth of his denouncement Americana in the 1920s.…
The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920’s and follows the lives of Nick our narrator and the extravagant neighbor Gatsby. It addresses how the world was changing in the 20’s but the themes explored in this novel are still relevant today. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald utilises characters symbols and motifs to illustrate the themes of the social decline of america, the dangers of self creation, and the blindness created by love.…
Scott Fitzgerald himself was a shining example of living out the new flapper society lifestyle. As a couple, Scott and his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald made tabloid newspapers with their extravagant lives. They experienced wild parties, had glamorous friends, and did wild stunts. According to one reported occasion, Scott and Zelda “jumped, fully clothed, into the fountain in front of New York’s Plaza Hotel” (Hensley 18). Zelda Fitzgerald herself symbolized the flapper spirit. She told women to be “light-hearted [and] unconventional” rather than focused on “a career that calls for hard work” (Appleby 613). In 1921 Scott and Zelda had their first and only child, a daughter named Scottie, which expressed the new 1920’s culture too as Scottie was usually a boy’s name (Hensley…
This example is a clear picture of just what people were like, they were careless in the way that they lived their lives, they had no regard for others, and they just wanted to party day in and day out. Fitzgerald, describing hypocrisy and carelessness in The Great Gatsby, exposed the American society for what it really was, something nobody had done up to this point in literature. As a result of this, Fitzgerald broke away from the norm and leapt over the boundary of being too afraid to try something different, making him the “Lost Generation” writer who had the strongest effect on American…
Character is not developed being sedentary. The extraordinary novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man. Known for his mysterious past and inconceivable amount of money, Gatsby is able to host several extravagant parties in his gothic mansion. Many characters in the novel represent each aspect of the Roaring Twenties. Introducing many characters who all seem to cause conflict with each other, the main character Fitzgerald sets the entire book over is Jay Gatsby.…
In reality, most young women in the 1920s did none of these things (though many did adopt a fashionable flapper wardrobe), but even those women who were not flappers gained some unprecedented freedoms. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald both participated in, and wrote books about, the Jazz Age, its morality and the decadence of the era. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, who was called F. Scott Fitzgerald, was born on September 24,1896. He was an American writer of fiction whose work spanned the years between World Wars I and II. F. Scott Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre in New York on April 3, 1920.…
Scott Fitzgerald did not have a simple life for he had many problems. The Great Gatsby was one of his biggest hit,“The novel exposes the hollow values of the Jazz Age ,with its economic and social corruptions.” ( F.Scott Fitzgerald ). As we may see Fitzgerald shows us the dark side of the jazz age something that was new to the era and something that many people liked. Although he also shows in the book how economy and social corruptions happened. Gatsby knows people who are corrupted and people who corrupt. Furthermore, “Toward the end of his life, Fitzgerald apparently found a measure of happiness in an affair with Sheilah Graham.” ( F. Scott Fitzgerald ). This quote gives a view of how famous people influenced modernism which changed people's beliefs, before the 20th century people cared about their partner in marriage, but people started to have affairs which made people see see the American Dream as a divorce people started to divorce more after the 20th century. As Fitzgerald showed in his novel The Great Gatsby rich people had affairs with people who were in lower…
Scott Fitzgerald outlined the events and lifestyles of the roaring 20s through his writings “The Great Gatsby” and “The Jelly Bean”, readers learn that wealth and class effected all the decisions and events that occurred. Jim and Gatsby, from the two works, had drastically different lives but had a lot in common when it came to people and how their story ended. Both used wealth and status as a way of gauging someone’s worth, both of them saw wealth and property as a way to get the girl and both ended up losing it all together. By using foreshadowing, irony and symbolism, F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the way of life during the 1920’s and the importance of…
There are several examples in the story Winter Dreams that reflects on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life. According to biography.com, a website with biographies on famous people’s lives, Fitzgerald grew up in Minnesota, and during the beginning of Dexter Green’s life, he lived in Minnesota. “In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter’s skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course” (Fitzgerald). This quote is an example of how Dexter Green’s childhood compares to Fitzgerald’s childhood. The next connection between the story and Fitzgerald’s life is that later in his life he moves to New York. Referring to The Literature Network, a network devoted to literature, in 1919 Fitzgerald moved to New York to work on his writing, and in the story Dexter moves to New York when he is in his mid twenties. “Already he was playing with the idea of going East to New York” (Fitzgerald). The final example is the relationship between Dexter and Judy, and Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Referring back to biography.com, Fitzgerald and his wife had a split in the 1920s and during the story, Dexter and Judy Jones has a split around that same age. The examples used help the reader understand how the story Winter Dreams relate to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life.…