Transcript The Great Gatsby - Kentucky Department of Education

“The Greaty Gatsby”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Born September 24, 1896
 named after ancestor, Francis Scott Key, who wrote
“The Star Spangled Banner.”
 Intelligent, but did poorly in school;
sent to boarding school, later enrolled
at Princeton in 1913.
 Never graduating, Fitzgerald
enlisted in the army in 1917.

 Became a second lieutenant, stationed at Camp Sheridan
in Montgomery, Alabama.
 Met and fell in love with a
17 year-old girl, Zelda.
 Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but made him wait
until he could prove to be a success.
 Published This Side of Paradise in 1920, and did so.
 Published The Great Gatsby, his most famous novel, in
1925.

 The Roaring Twenties dissolved into the Great
Depression
 Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown
 Fitzgerald turned to alcoholism
 Published Tender is the Night in 1934
 Sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post
 Left for Hollywood in 1937 to write screenplays
 While working on a novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon,
in 1940, Fitzgerald (age 44) suffered a heart attack
and died.
The Great Gatsby:
Setting

 Long Island’s North Shore and New York City from
spring to autumn in 1922.
 (fictional) West Egg and East Egg, Long Island. Next
to Nick’s rental house is Gatsby’s mansion.
The Great Gatsby:
The Roaring Twenties

 A period of economic prosperity, also known as
“The Jazz Age.”
The “flapper”
The Charleston
Art Deco – linear symmetry
Bootlegging
Prohibition

 Rise of the stock market
 Decayed social and moral values
 increase in the national wealth and newfound
materialism
 A person from any social background could,
potentially, make a fortune
 families with old wealth scorned the newly rich
Themes

 The Decline of the American Dream
 originally about discovery, individualism, and the
pursuit of happiness
 easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted
this dream
 The Hollowness of the Upper Class
 Newly rich greatly different from aristocracy (old
money)