The Great Gatsby
 By F. Scott Fitzgerald
“They shall not grow old, as
we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn
At the going down of the
sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
Laurence Binyon
Early 1900’s
 The average life expectancy was 47 years
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles
Of paved roads
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel
Tower
Early 1900’s
 The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour
The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and
$4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per
year
More than 95 percent of all births took place at home
Ninety percent of all doctors had no college education
Sugar cost four cents a pound
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound
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Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or eggs for shampoo
Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores pharmacists said that heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach
and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September
24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott
Key, the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though
an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was
sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite
being a mediocre student there, he managed to
enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and
apathy plagued him throughout his time at college,
and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the
army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was
stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery,
Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild
seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda
finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering
desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay
their wedding until he could prove a success. With
the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920,
Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning
enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry
him.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Fitzgerald returned to his parents' house at 599
Summit Avenue, on Cathedral Hill, in St. Paul to
revise The Romantic Egoist. Recast as This Side of
Paradise, about the post-WWI flapper generation, it
was accepted by Scribner's in the fall of 1919, and
Zelda and Scott resumed their engagement. The
novel was published on March 26, 1920, and became
one of the most popular books of the year. Scott and
Zelda were married in New York's St. Patrick's
Cathedral. Their daughter and only child, Frances
Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, was born on October 26,
1921.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life
appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby,
published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is
a thoughtful young man from Minnesota, educated
at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who
moves to New York after the war. Also similar to
Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who
idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with
a beautiful young woman while stationed at a
military camp in the South.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless
life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to
please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby
amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and
devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties
that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love. As the
giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the
bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a
nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which
hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in
1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to
support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to
write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel
The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age
of forty-four.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 The 1920s proved the most influential decade of
Fitzgerald's development. The Great Gatsby,
considered Scott's masterpiece, was published in
1925. Fitzgerald made several excursions to Europe,
notably Paris and the French Riviera, and became
friends with many members of the American
expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest
Hemingway.
 Hemingway looked up to Fitzgerald as an
experienced professional writer. Hemingway greatly
admired The Great Gatsby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway was tumultuous,
as many of Fitzgerald’s relationships would prove to be.
Hemingway did not get on well with Zelda, either. He
claimed that she “encouraged her husband to drink so as
to distract Scott from his ‘real’ work on his novel," the
other work being the short stories he sold to magazines.
This “whoring”, as Fitzgerald, and subsequently
Hemingway, called these sales, was a sore point in the
authors’ friendship. Fitzgerald claimed that he would
first write his stories in an authentic manner but then put
in “twists that made them into saleable magazine
stories.”
 Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920’s America,
an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age.” Written in 1925, The
Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this
period, in which the American economy soared, bringing
unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. Prohibition,
the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by
the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made
millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of
revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude
police notice, and “speakeasies”—secret clubs that sold
liquor—thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left
America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the
war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The
conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade
were gone, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the
order of the day.
The Great Gatsby
 First published on April 10, 1925
 Is a critique of the American Dream
 Chronicles the chaos of World War I
 American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity
during the "roaring" 1920’s as the economy soared
 Although not popular at first printing, it is today widely
regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel and a
literary classic
 Has become a standard text in high school and university
courses on American literature in countries around the world,
 Is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best
Novels of the 20th Century
• INFORMATION FROM SPARKNOTES
The Great Gatsby
 The Great Gatsby has been filmed four times:
1. The Great Gatsby, in 1926 by Herbert Brenon – a silent movie of a
stage adaptation, starring Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson, and William
Powell. It is a famous example of a lost film. Reviews suggest that it
may have been the most faithful adaptation of the novel, but a
trailer of the film at National Archives is all that is known to exist
2. The Great Gatsby, in 1949 by Elliott Nugent – starring Alan Ladd,
Betty Field, and Shelley Winters; for copyright reasons, this film is
not readily available
3. The Great Gatsby, in 1974, by Jack Clayton – the most famous
screen version, starring Robert Redford in the title role with Mia
Farrow as Daisy Buchanan and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway,
with a script by Francis Ford Coppola
4. The Great Gatsby, in 2000 by Robert Markowitz – a made-for-TV
movie starring Toby Stephens, Paul Rudd and Mira Sorvino.
The Great Gatsby - Setting
 Takes place during a time right after World War I
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and before The Great Depression
Takes place during a time of unprecedented
prosperity
Set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York
City during the summer of 1922
Flows between East Egg and West Egg – different
sides of the harbor
Neighborhood of wealth, lavish parties, fancy cars,
and mansions
The Great Gatsby - Setting
Oheka Castle
on the Gold
Coast of Long
Island was a
partial
inspiration for
Gatsby's estate.
The Great Gatsby - Themes
 Themes are the fundamental and often universal
ideas explored in a literary work.
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The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920’s
The hollowness of the upper class
The Prohibition
Women in the 20’s
East verses West
Discrimination
The Great Gatsby - Symbolism
 Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
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The Green Light
Valley of the Ashes
The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg
Automobiles
The Jazz Age
The East
The White Race
The Great Gatsby - Motifs
 Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and
literary devices that can help to develop and inform
the text’s major themes.
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Geography
Weather
The Great Gatsby - Characters
 Nick Carroway – narrator of the novel
 Jay Gatsby – protagonist and title character
 Daisy Buchanan – Nick’s cousin
 Tom Buchanan – wealthy villain
 Jordan Baker – Daisy’s cousin and pro golfer
 George and Myrtle Wilson –
 gas station owners
1922
 Pres. Warren G Harding introduced the first radio to the White House
 The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC was dedicated
 Movie hits included “Beyond the Rocks” and “Cops”
 The New York Giants won the World Series
 The NFL was organized and played its first season
1922 – The Automobile
 The first cars did not have steering wheels. Drivers
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steered with a lever.
The New York City Police Department used bicycles to
pursue speeding motorists in 1898.
The first speeding ticket was issued in 1902.
In 1916, 55 percent of the cars in the world were Model T
Fords, a record that has never been beaten.
The first gas gauge appeared in cars in 1922.
In 1923, 173 new inventions by women for cars had been
reported. Among these inventions were a carburetor and
an electric engine starter.
The Automobile
 Tin Lizzie
Gatsby’s Car – The Pierce Arrow
Roaring Twenties
Welcome to 1922, East Egg, and The Great Gatsby