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North American Literature III
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UNIT 2. THE JAZZ AGE AND THEAMERICAN DREAM F.SCOTT
FITZGERALD AND THE GREAT GASTBY
The First World War marked the beginning of a new era in economic, social, ideological
and literary terms. One of the outcomes of it is the feeling of disillusionment. A group
of people were disillusionment; the generation which fought and survived the war was
called “the lost generation”. A continuous search for values and beliefs, coats for
contact. After the First World War, the country was transforming, it transformed from
a war economy to a post War economy which was peaceful.
Because of the feeling due to the war they lost their illusion on the government. The
disillusionment after the war. Marked a contrast between the experience of the war
and the new emergence of materialism. These authors felt dislocated because of the
general breakdown of traditional values. They also felt a huge gap, wide distance
between themselves and the previous literary generation that of the realists and
naturalists. They were disappointed with abstractions such as progress, liberty and
democracy which had justified the war, and which in the peace time were not enough
to restore the preceding faith. New values to hold their world.
All the industrial forced which were devoted to the war, now has to be reoriented in
order to be useful. A reckless decade, a decade this came to be known as the
“ROARING TWENTIES”. Roaring has two meaning, on the one hand it means prosperity
and on the other very loud. Thanks to new inventions such as the phonograph or the
radio aided the jazz to be widespread towards the region. It is characterized by
improvisation; it broke the rules of music just as the people in this generation broke
the social rules and norms of the past.
This decade is a period of consumerism, (a consumer culture). IN TERMS OF POLITICS,
the return to normalcy after the War was impossible. America became the richest
country in the world, held by the development of electricity, telephone, etc. there
were three consecutive republican presidents: Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), Calvin
Coolidge (1923-1929), and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933).
Support of the big businesses, private, by means of tax cuts for corporations and
wealthy people they also imposed high tariffs (custom-duties), and they believed that
the government hadn’t have to interfere in business terms. They had to play a limited
role in international affair and focus in the affairs of America only. The government
shouldn’t act to protect or assist individuals. A liberal kind of economic policies that
they endorsed. The Stock Market Crash in 1929(this supposed the end of the Roaring
,Twenties) was the responsible to make people aware of how important was to make
an intervention in economics.
IN SOCIAL TERMS, there is organized crime and harsh social inequalities. The decade
also saw the rise of social, religious and racial bigotry. This is the period of prohibition
which boosted through the years 1920 and 1933; the 15 amendments of the
constitution were the responsible of the prohibitions (No Alcohol Act …). The
speakeasies (kind of hidden, secret bars) were frequently raised by police as people
sold and drank alcohol there.
There is a number of gangsters and bootlegging (contraband of liquor and beer) as
people made illegal fortunes by smuggling alcohol to the US. At the time, there was
illegal gambling, age of scandals, the most notorious one was the Black Sox Scandal
(1919), 8 members of the Red-White Sox accepted money from a gambler and they
changed the result of the baseball series.
Young women started breaking old, social and gender conventions guiding their
behaviour. They demanded the right to vote and to work outside the home. There is a
change from the Victorian model of motherhood to the figure of the new women.
They were net as flatters (one of the most compelling symbols of the 20s culture and
society of the US), they rebelled against the fashion and social norms of the 1900s,
among other things. They married at a later age than the one usual before, they drank
and smoked in public, symbolically they cut their hair in a boyish-bob haircut. They also
wore a specific kind of dress which was shapeless and shorter than the ones before,
they looked more boy-like as it doesn’t emphasize the female shape of the body. At
the same time, dances like the Charleston became popular.
Although more and more single women worked outside the house and were an
important reserve force, when they married they quit their jobs and devoted to home-
working and taking care of children. Women suffered from discrimination on their
jobs. Birth control for the upper and middle classes was very important, 90% of the
middle-class couples admitted using some form of birth control, this means that rather
than a duty, everything was about sex pleasure.
The exploding mass culture of the 20s radio, film and popular magazines, marketed
standardized behaviour models to population with different backgrounds and themes
which generated a new kind of conformity, based on middle-class consumer values, it
caused illusion of freedom and happiness.
The jazz age was an age of reckless spending; the automobile was seen as a symbol of
social status. The assembling-line means of production allowed Henry Ford to
popularize the automobile. Advertising was also becoming the major industry and soon
advertisers took advantage of new Broadway’s by setting up new billboards at their
sights in order to show their later products.
, SCOTT FITZERALD (1896-1940)
He was born September 24, 1896. And he died December 21, 1940
Married Zelda Sayre and led a very extravagant way of life – both drank a lot, Scott was
an alcoholic and since he had mental problems his writing was very intermittent (he
was sober when he did so, though).
He went to Princeton University but he didn’t graduate. He joined the army and went
to Alabama where he met his wife, Zelda Sayre. He published This Side of Paradise
(1920), and two years later with the publication of The Beautiful and the Damned
(1922) he became an alcoholic, apparently he was sober when editing, Zelda is
reported to having drunk a lot although not being an alcoholic . In many of the places
they went to receive treatments for alcoholism, Zelda went to psychiatric institutions.
He published his most known and remarkable novel in 1925, The Great Gatsby. He
dedicated his life mainly to taking care of his wife. He was fully recognised after death.
He is one of the most representative writers.
He is a highly representative of the trend as his works provide a very significant picture
of the mood of the new generation of people of the 20s. He talks about the good
things but also he amounts to a denunciation of the shallowness of that kind of
society.
The great Gatsby depicts consumerism and glamour, at the same time it talks about
the influence of capitalism and consumerism in this changing society. The kind of life
he portrays is directly connected to the kind of life he had on his youth, he came from
a rich family. The novel shows his ambivalent idea of the jazz age, on the one hand he
enjoyed the happy life and parties, while on the other hand, he resented the
superficiality, the shallowness around him. If The Great Gatsby is considered the great
American novel is because it costs a critical eye on materialist acquisition, but it also
presents a nostalgic flavour about vanishing ideals.
THE GREAT GATSBY (1925)
A novel about the American dream, Great Gatsby as the embodiment of a self-made
man that fulfils the myth of gig from rags to riches, but he doesn’t achieve happiness,
he fails to achieve it through wealth. A failed version of the American Dream.
Portray and analysis of society as divided into two main groups: 1) the East people who
are wealthy, have contacts and influence in the world, world of glamour and
sophistication; 2) The West people who are rich as well but have a different kind, lack
the degree of sophistication. Social distinction between the old wealth of the East and
the new wealth of the West. Clash between different kinds of worthy people (cultural
understanding of social class).
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