English Great Gatsby Test

Historical context - background of Fitzgerald

• F. Scott Fitzgerald was a dreamer who wanted to be famous

• Born in 1896 in the Midwest

• Went to prep schools and gained popularity through writing

• Went to Princeton and continued writing

• Eventually, he left Princeton because because he was too focused on writing and drinking

  • academics suffered

  • joined the military

Start of his love

• Met his first love in college - it didn’t wokr out

  • “poor boys don’t marry rich girls”

• 1917 enlisted to fight in WW1

• Met Zelda Sayer

  • both were wild and like to party

• 1918- war ended and Fitzgerald missed his chance to be a war hero

• Proposed to Zelda after his first novel, Side of Paradise, was published

Successes

• Age 23 - made some money and married Zelda

• This is the time of extravagance and self indulgence in the USA

  • coined as “Jazz Age” by Fitzgerald

  • Scott and Zelda partied all the time

• 1921 - Scottie, their daughter is born

  • both were still very wild and partied for weeks at a time

• Finally moved to Europe to escape the scene to write The Great Gatsby

• The couple was drunk all the time

• Began working on The Great Gatsby in 1924 and after many drafts and revisions published in 1925

• Fitzgerald receives praise for the novel, but is short lived because the stock market crashes 4 years later in 1929

His and Zelda’s fall

• Shortly after, Zelda’s mental state deteriorates and she is put into an asylum

• Fitzgerald begins to drink more

  • later hospitalized for alcoholism

• He moves to Hollywood to work on screen plays

  • He briefly succeeds, but inevitably his drinking interferes, and he is not asked to do more work

• Used his life experiences to draw inspiration for novels

• Dies of a heart attack in 1940 at the age of 44

Historical background

• the Moderns: 1900-1950

• WW1: 1914-1918

• Great Gatsby set after WW1

• Prohibition Era: 1920-1933

  • US prohibits the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages

• American Dream

• Harlem Renaissance

• time period of contrast

Tenets of the American Dream

• American = New Eden

• Boundless resources and opportunities

• no cap on progress

• the independence, self-reliant person will always succeed

Harlem Renaissance

• explosion of African American art, music, and writing

• rally cry against racism

• seeds of civil rights movement

Time period of contrast

• Magnificence of Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, and the Idea of the American Dream

VS

• Human suffering and depression