F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“Winter Dreams” and
The Great Gatsby
About the Author
Born-September 24, 1896
 Died-December 21, 1940
 Married Zelda Sayre
 Famous works include The Great Gatsby,
The Beautiful and the Damned, and
Tender is the Night
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Impact on
Society
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Fitzgerald is credited
with coining the phrase
“The Jazz Age” to
describe the 1920’s.
He wrote the The Great
Gatsby, which is said to
be the most accurate
description of the 1920’s.
“Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby
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Fitzgerald is best remembered for his spoiled and
conflicted Jazz Age characters, including Dexter
Green from “Winter Dreams,” who bears a distinct
resemblance to Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of The
Great Gatsby. Both men are self-made and eager to
rise beyond their station in life. The similarities
between “Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby are
not accidental, as Fitzgerald wrote the short story
while he was developing the ideas that would
become the novel.
World War I
World War I ended in 1918.
 People were disillusioned because of the
war.
 The generation that fought and survived
has come to be called “the lost
generation.”
 The end of this war helped spawn the
Jazz Age, which coincides with the
decade known as The Roaring Twenties.
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The Roaring Twenties
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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
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Prohibition was in effect.
Dances such as the Charleston were popular.
Popular sayings included 23 Skidoo and Bee’s
Knees.
The economy was in a
“Boom.”
The Jazz Age
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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
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Among the rules broken were the age-old
conventions guiding the behavior of women, such
as marriage at a later age and public drinking and
smoking. The new woman also demanded the
right to vote and to work outside the home.
This rebellious new woman tried to appear more
man-like by cutting her hair into a boyish “bob.”
She also shortened her skirts revealing the newfound sexuality common of the “flapper.”
Prohibition
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Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, or
Prohibition, banned the public sale of alcoholic
beverages from 1919 until its appeal in 1933.
This amendment was not obeyed.
Speak-easies, nightclubs, and taverns that sold
liquor were often raided, and gangsters made
illegal fortunes as bootleggers, smuggling alcohol
into America.
Gambling
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Illegal gambling was encouraged by gangs.
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
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The Roaring Twenties was an era of reckless
spending and consumption.
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.
Characters of The Great Gatsby
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Jay Gatsby- The self-made wealthy man who
lives next door to Nick Carraway and loves
Daisy Buchanan
Characters of The Great Gatsby
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Nick Carraway- the narrator, Daisy’s cousin,
Gatsby’s neighbor
Characters in The Great Gatsby
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Daisy Buchanan- married to Tom, Gatsby’s love
interest before the war, socialite
Characters in The Great Gatsby
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Tom Buchanan- Daisy’s husband, has an affair
with Myrtle
Myrtle Wilson- Tom’s woman in the city,
married to George
George Wilson- owns the gas station
Jordan Baker- Daisy’s friend, professional golfer
Settings in The Great Gatsby
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West Egg- where Nick
and Gatsby live,
represents new money
East Egg- where Daisy
lives, the more
fashionable area,
represents old money
Settings in The Great Gatsby
The City- New York City, where the characters
escape to for work and play
 The Valley of Ashes- between the City and West
Egg, where Wilson’s
gas station is
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Symbols in The Great Gatsby
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Green Light- at the end of Daisy’s dock and
visible from Gatsby’s mansion. Represents
Gatsby's hopes and dreams about Daisy.
Symbols in The Great Gatsby
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The Valley of Ashes- the area between West
Egg and New York City. It is a desolate area
filled with industrial waste. It represents the
social and moral decay of society during the
1920’s. It also shows the negative effects of
greed.
Symbols in The Great Gatsby
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The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Ekleburg- A decaying
billboard in the Valley of Ashes with eyes
advertising an optometrist. There are multiple
proposed meanings, including the representation
of God’s moral judgment on society.
Important Quotes
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“I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a
girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
Daisy’s description of her daughter
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne
back ceaselessly into the past.” –the last line of
the novel
Important Quotes
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"They were careless people, Tom and Daisythey smashed up things and creatures and then
retreated back into their money or their vast
carelessness or whatever it was that kept them
together, and let other people clean up the mess
they had made." – Nick’s description of Tom
and Daisy
The American Dream
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Gatsby is the ideal image
of one who has achieved
the American Dream.
What is the American
Dream and who has
achieved it in our time?
Choose one person on
the next slide and explain
how they are living the
American Dream.
American Dream Cont.
Lebron James
Kim K.
Tyler Perry
Oprah Winfrey
Bill Clinton
Mark Zuckerburg
Old Money Vs. New Money
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New Money:
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Old Money
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Someone who has
achieved the American
Dream
Not as respected in the
1920’s
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Money from family
wealth
Born rich
Not earned through
work done by yourself
Respected above all in
the 1920’s
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